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.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo used high- resolution radiocarbon analysis of a marine sediment core from the Kumano Sea (off the southeast coast of central Japan) to detect previously invisible “hidden” traces of submarine landslides, likely triggered by earthquakes in the Nankai Trough.
The authors applied continuous, high- resolution radiocarbon dating of total organic carbon (¹⁴C TOC) at 0.5- 1.0 cm intervals to a 40 cm hemipelagic sediment core (KT- 12- 34- MC01) from the western Kumano Trough (2080 m water depth, off the Kii Peninsula, Nankai Trough region).
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Researchers at the University of Tokyo used high- resolution radiocarbon analysis of a marine sediment core from the Kumano Sea (off the southeast coast of central Japan) to detect previously invisible “hidden” traces of submarine landslides, likely triggered by earthquakes in the Nankai Trough.
The Nankai Trough is a major subduction zone where Japan’s next megaquake is anticipated (possibly within the next few decades). Conventional methods, visual inspection, X- ray, and CT imaging, showed the ~40 cm core as largely homogeneous fine- grained hemipelagic mud (clayey silt), with no clear event layers.
Using an ultrasensitive radiocarbon (carbon- 14) method on total organic carbon at high resolution (0.5- 1.0 cm intervals), the team identified abrupt shifts: older organic carbon mixed into younger sediment layers.
These were interpreted as redeposited material from seafloor disturbance (submarine landslides or related events possibly linked to earthquakes, floods, or storms). The layers were chemically and structurally indistinguishable from surrounding sediment, which is why they were invisible to prior techniques.
The oldest part of the core dates to approximately 1440 CE (at ~37- 38 cm depth). By converting radiocarbon ages to calendar years (calibrated with foraminifera ages), researchers correlated some events with historical records of submarine earthquakes from the 13th to 20th centuries.
The work is published in Radiocarbon (Omura, Yokoyama, Hirabayashi et al., 2026; DOI: 10.1017/RDC.2026.10255). Lead researcher Professor Yusuke Yokoyama (Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute) noted that the approach can help reconstruct a fuller history of geophysical disasters, improving hazard assessment not only for Japan but for other seismically active regions. Further sampling across the Kumano Sea and beyond is planned.
This provides a new tool for paleoseismology by revealing “invisible” event deposits that traditional methods miss.
This simplified map shows where the sediment core was extracted, in 2012, from the Kumano Sea off the coast of Japan. Also marked are several historically documented submarine earthquakes known to have occurred in the wider area. Credit: Nicola Burghall 2026
Sequential high- density radiocarbon dating to detect invisible event layers in marine sediments
The authors applied continuous, high- resolution radiocarbon dating of total organic carbon (¹⁴C TOC) at 0.5- 1.0 cm intervals to a 40 cm hemipelagic sediment core (KT- 12- 34- MC01) from the western Kumano Trough (2080 m water depth, off the Kii Peninsula, Nankai Trough region).
The core appears homogeneous (clayey silt) by visual inspection, soft X- ray, and CT imaging, with only subtle brightness variations.
Age reversals, horizons where ¹⁴C TOC ages are older than those of underlying sediment, reveal seven “invisible” event layers caused by remobilization of older seafloor material (submarine slope failures, landslides, likely triggered by earthquakes). These were not detectable by conventional methods.
δ¹³C values (−20 to −22‰) and C/N ratios (~8) indicate a predominantly marine particulate organic carbon source for both normal and event layers, ruling out significant terrestrial (flood- derived) input.
TOC ages are systematically older (Δage offset of ~700– 1100 years); these offsets were calibrated using coeval foraminifera- TOC pairs.
The core spans roughly the last 600 years (oldest material ~1440 CE).
Calibrated event layers correlate with historical Nankai Trough earthquakes after the 15th century:
Layers 1– 2: possible links to 1944 Tonankai and 1946 Nankai or 1854 Ansei Tokai events.
Layer 3: 1707 Hoei earthquake.
Layers 4– 5: 1707 Hoei or minor events.
Layer 6: 1605 Keicho earthquake.
Continuous high- density ¹⁴C TOC dating can detect event deposits within otherwise featureless hemipelagic mud, expanding the paleoseismic record beyond classic turbidites.
The method is particularly useful in regions with sparse foraminifera and supports improved hazard assessment for the Nankai Trough megaquake.
The paper was presented as a selected contribution from the 25th International Radiocarbon Conference (Kraków, 2025).
Journal:Radiocarbon (First View), published online 9 November 2026
We present a unique application of radiocarbon measurements on hemipelagic sediments that uses continuous radiocarbon dating of total organic carbon (14CTOC age) to recognize event deposits. The 14CTOC age of sediments is not commonly used for age determination because total organic carbon includes various origins, such as marine, terrestrial, and reworked old fragments. In this study, the 14CTOC ages of some horizons were found to be older than those of the deeper ones through continuous 14CTOC measurements at 0.5- to 1.0-cm intervals. The reversal 14CTOC ages resulted not from the settlement of organic particles from the terrestrial environments, such as floodings, but from the submarine slope failures. Therefore, we can regard the reversal 14CTOC layers as event layers due to geohazards. After reconstruction of the age model using foraminiferal tests obtained from the sediment core used in this study, depositional ages of event layers were identified. Well correlation with historical natural disasters after the 15th century suggest validity of the method proposed by the current study.
The sediment core was previously described as being made up of “homogeneous hemipelagic mud” (fine-grained mud with sediment from the land and ocean). To the naked eye and on X-ray and CT images (a), there do not appear to be any major differences between layers. However, by using radiocarbon dating (b), the team found multiple layers of deposition from geophysical events, revealing a more complex history. Credit: A. Omura, Y. Yokoyama, S. Hirabayashi et al. 2026/ Radiocarbon
The supercontinent cycle itself strongly influenced CO2 levels through the global carbon cycle: volcanic outgassing and rifting (sources) versus silicate rock weathering and carbon burial (sinks).
Supercontinent assembly often enhanced weathering (especially of mountain belts) and could promote cooler and icehouse conditions if continents were positioned favorably.
When a CO₂ molecule absorbs an infrared photon, it is excited into a higher vibrational state. It quickly collides with neighboring air molecules (mostly N₂ and O₂) and transfers that energy as kinetic energy (heat).
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On multi- million- year timescales during the eras of supercontinents, atmospheric CO2 was a primary long- term driver (the main “control knob”) of Earth’s climate, just as it has been for most of geologic history.
The supercontinent cycle itself strongly influenced CO2 levels through the global carbon cycle: volcanic outgassing and rifting (sources) versus silicate rock weathering and carbon burial (sinks).
Supercontinent assembly often enhanced weathering (especially of mountain belts) and could promote cooler and icehouse conditions if continents were positioned favorably.
Breakup increased continental rifting and degassing, tending to raise CO2 and favor warmer greenhouse climates. Continental geography, aridity, solar luminosity (weaker in the deep past), and other factors (e.g., methane in the early Earth) also played roles, so the relationship was never purely one- to- one.
Approximate CO2 levels
Concentrations are given in parts per million (ppm).
For reference, pre- industrial levels were ~280 ppm;
todays are roughly 420- 430 ppm (about 0.042– 0.043 %).
1 ppm = 1,000 ppb, so 400 ppm = 400,000 ppb.
Pangaea (most recent supercontinent, roughly 335–175 million years ago)
Peak of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (late Carboniferous- early Permian, during assembly): prolonged low levels, typically ~180- 400 ppm (sometimes minima near ~200 ppm). These unusually low values (rare in Earth’s history) helped sustain extensive glaciation.
Around 294 Ma: rapid ~4- fold rise that helped end the ice age and shift to warmer conditions.
Late Permian: roughly 400- 900 ppm.
Early Triassic (still under Pangaea, after the end- Permian extinction): peaked much higher, with estimates of ~2,000- 2,600 ppm (or more in some reconstructions).
As Pangaea broke up into the Mesozoic: generally, hundreds to ~1,000- 2,000 ppm during warmer greenhouse intervals.
Older supercontinents (e.g., Rodinia, ~1.1 billion to ~750 million years ago) Levels were generally higher and far more uncertain because proxies are scarcer. Model estimates during Rodinia– related phases often fall in the range of several hundred to ~1,000- 2,000 and more ppm; breakup is linked to enhanced weathering that drew CO2 down and contributed to severe “Snowball Earth” glaciations.
Even earlier (Archean- Paleoproterozoic, times of still- older landmass assemblies) Estimates from paleosols and other proxies commonly range from tens to hundreds of times present atmospheric levels (often thousands to >10,000 ppm, and in some cases much higher). Elevated greenhouse gases (including CO2) were needed to keep the planet from freezing under a fainter young Sun.
In short, CO2 concentrations during supercontinent intervals ranged from near modern (or lower) lows during certain icehouse phases of Pangaea up to many times higher (thousands of ppm) in warmer intervals or deeper in the Precambrian.
The long- term balance of the carbon cycle, modulated by the supercontinent cycle, kept CO2 as a central climate driver across these vast stretches of Earth history. Proxy and model uncertainties grow larger the further back in time one goes.
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Carbon dioxide drives warming primarily through its molecular structure, which lets it absorb and re- radiate infrared (heat) radiation that Earth emits, even at ~0.04% (roughly 420 ppm) of the atmosphere.
Earth’s surface is warmed by visible sunlight.
It then radiates energy back toward space mainly as infrared (long- wave) radiation. Certain molecules in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases, interact with that infrared.
CO₂ is a linear molecule (O=C=O).
Its vibrational modes (symmetric stretch, asymmetric stretch, and bending) match frequencies in the infrared bands where Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere emit strongly.
When a CO₂ molecule absorbs an infrared photon, it is excited into a higher vibrational state. It quickly collides with neighboring air molecules (mostly N₂ and O₂) and transfers that energy as kinetic energy (heat).
It can also re- emit an infrared photon in a random direction. Some of those photons head back toward the surface and lower atmosphere, slowing the net loss of heat to space.
This is not a permanent “trap” that holds heat forever; it is a continuous absorption and re- emission process that raises the altitude from which infrared radiation finally escapes to space. Because temperature decreases with height in the troposphere, emitting from a colder layer means less energy leaves the planet for a given surface temperature. The surface and lower atmosphere must therefore warm until the outgoing radiation again balances the incoming solar energy.
Why a small concentration still matters
Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas by total effect, but its amount is largely controlled by temperature (it is a feedback). CO₂ is a long- lived, well-mixed gas whose concentration is directly raised by human emissions.
CO₂ absorbs strongly in the 15 µm band (and has weaker bands elsewhere). Even at low concentration it saturates the core of that band, but the wings of the absorption lines and the upper atmosphere continue to respond, so additional CO₂ still increases radiative forcing.
The climate system is sensitive: a few watts per square meter of extra downward infrared flux, sustained over decades, produces measurable global temperature rise.
In short, the “unique atomic structure” description is essentially correct: the geometry and bonding of the CO₂ molecule give it the vibrational frequencies needed to interact with terrestrial infrared radiation. That interaction is what allows a gas present at only 0.04% to exert a measurable influence on Earth’s energy balance.
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The CO₂ molecule does not “trap” heat like a physical cage or sponge. Instead, it absorbs specific wavelengths of infrared (IR) radiation emitted by Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere, then either transfers that energy to surrounding air molecules or re- emits it in random directions. The net result is that some of the outgoing heat energy is redirected downward, slowing the planet’s cooling to space.
Molecular structure and why it interacts with heat radiation
A CO₂ molecule is linear: an oxygen atom double- bonded to a central carbon atom, which is double- bonded to another oxygen (O=C=O).
This geometry gives it three main vibrational modes:
Symmetric stretch (the two oxygens move in and out together), this does not change the molecule’s dipole moment and is infrared- inactive.
Asymmetric stretch (one oxygen moves closer while the other moves farther), infrared- active.
Bending modes (the molecule flexes at the carbon atom, like a hinge; there are two equivalent planes), strongly infrared- active.
The bending modes are especially important. They absorb strongly near 15 micrometers (≈667 cm⁻¹), a wavelength band where Earth’s surface and troposphere emit a large fraction of their thermal infrared radiation.
Step- by- step process
Absorption An infrared photon whose energy matches one of the active vibrational frequencies is absorbed. The molecule jumps to a higher vibrational energy state.
Energy transfer (the main pathway in the dense lower atmosphere) Within a tiny fraction of a second, the excited CO₂ molecule collides with a neighboring N₂ or O₂ molecule. The vibrational energy is converted into kinetic energy (faster molecular motion), which is heat. The CO₂ returns to a lower vibrational state, and the surrounding air is slightly warmer.
Re- emission The molecule can also spontaneously emit an infrared photon of similar energy. Because emission is isotropic (random direction), roughly half the photons head back toward the surface and lower atmosphere rather than out to space.
Net radiative effect By repeatedly absorbing upward- going IR and either thermalizing it or sending some of it back downward, CO₂ raises the average altitude from which IR finally escapes to space. Higher altitudes are colder, so the planet must warm at the surface until the outgoing radiation again balances the incoming solar energy.
Key caveats
The process is continuous and dynamic; individual molecules do not hold onto heat indefinitely.
At current concentrations (~0.04 % or ~420 ppm), the center of the 15 µm band is already strongly absorbing, but the wings of the absorption lines and the upper atmosphere continue to respond to additional CO₂, so the forcing still increases.
Water vapor, methane, and other greenhouse gases work by analogous absorption–re-emission mechanisms, each in their own spectral bands.
In short, the CO₂ molecule’s geometry creates vibrational frequencies that match Earth’s thermal infrared output. Absorption followed by collisional energy transfer or random re- emission is the microscopic mechanism that produces the macroscopic greenhouse effect.
One thousand million dollars a year, soon to be more, is being sucked out of the Australian economy to pointlessly track carbon emissions. And companies will pay even more than that to hire consultants to calculate the emissions in the first place so the accountants (the ones earning a billion dollars) can check them.
These a billion dollars that isn’t making better widgets, growing food, or curing cancer. Customers will have to pay more for the exact same product.
Australian companies will pay $1+ billion in climate accounting fees, including reporting CO2 produced in other countries
One thousand million dollars a year, soon to be more, is being sucked out of the Australian economy to pointlessly track carbon emissions. And companies will pay even more than that to hire consultants to calculate the emissions in the first place so the accountants (the ones earning a billion dollars) can check them.
It creates a new vested interest who will lobby for more of this red tape.
All over the country fully functional people with 15 years of education (at least) are busy researching and calculating numbers that serve no useful purpose. Even if we pretend carbon dioxide was worth limiting (bear with me), what point is there is tracking emissions produced in China, say, from burning our coal? So, we can flagellate ourselves at UN cocktail parties? So, we can tell off President Xi?
Australian companies are being required to account for emissions they don’t produce, from facilities they don’t own, in countries where Australian law has no jurisdiction. Penalties are in the order of $18 million or 10% of annual turnover. What are we thinking?
These a billion dollars that isn’t making better widgets, growing food, or curing cancer. Customers will have to pay more for the exact same product. Shareholders get nothing but a smaller dividend. Australia becomes just a bit less competitive. But some bureaucrat will have some great stats to share on a slideshow at the next UN convention.
The Labor Party has brought in laws saying all Australian companies with more than 100 employees* have to calculate their carbon emissions in detail, including not just the emissions they control (Scope 1) but the emissions produced by their suppliers of electricity, heating and cooling (Scope 2) and even by their customers (Scope 3).
ClimateZero has helpfully laid out the full bureaucratic nightmare that poor CEOs must employ lawyers and accountants to wade through. This onerous task is being phased in, starting with largest companies last year, and bringing in the smaller $50 million operations* mid next year. “Scope 3” emissions get added to the burden a year after the Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
The awful truth is that big companies are doing all this work and then paying around $85,000 just for accounting firms to check and approve their numbers. Mid-sized companies are slugged for about $61,000 for the same process. This is really going to hurt smaller businesses.
The Australian Financial Review ran an article discussing “the billion-dollar bonanza” these onerous rules give to the Big Four accounting firms. They noted that the Labor Government is promising to reduce the burden by $210 million or so and was tinkering around the edges considering whether to allow some smaller companies to escape.
Two years ago, two Coalition Senators estimated that climate reporting will cost business $2.3 billion. They estimated 1,800 entities would be captured. It’s just a paper pushing farce, tracking a gas that feeds plants and trees. The Labor Party is creating jobs burying bottles of cash and paying people to dig them up again.
Surely this is soul destroying for the national psyche? Half the population already doesn’t think Net Zero is worth spending a cent on. How long before the people doing the accounting and auditing realize their career is a pointless inanity?
Australia’s climate disclosure regime is being examined by a Treasury consultation seeking to pare back some rules and cut the costs of compliance.
The consultation follows a proposal in this year’s federal budget to raise the thresholds for large proprietary companies. This is a move that could free many small companies of the obligation, and the big accounting costs that come with it.
In related developments, the Coalition also announced last Wednesday that it would significantly curtail climate reporting for business, by carving out emissions from Australian gas and coal burned overseas and reducing the number of companies captured by the scheme.
“The European Union and New Zealand have scaled their climate reporting rules back significantly, while the US has stopped pursuing it at the federal level.”
But reducing this accounting burden will cut the income of the Big accounting firms, cry me a river….
Climate fee bonanza for big four
Separate research has projected Australia’s climate reporting market to be worth more than$1 billion a year in fees for consultancies and auditors, with companies paying a median $85,000 (!) for assurance – 70 per cent more than Treasury’s initial $50,000 estimate.
The big four accounting firms captured 90 per cent of climate assurance engagements – 504 out of 561 reports – according to research by data consultancy Purpose Bureau, supported by Monash Business School and advisory firm Foresight.
The research found that the median disclosed fee of the big four is $88,000, compared with a median figure of $61,000 for mid-tier firms.
Thankfully, two weeks ago the Coalition announced they will dump the Scope 3 requirement and also drop the smaller companies out of it.
Labor’s own Treasury estimated Scope 3 emissions modelling alone could cost around $245,000 per entity in the first year, and more than $160,000 annually thereafter.
Leader of the Opposition Angus Taylor it is absurd to force Australian businesses to report on emissions they cannot control, using data they often cannot access, at a cost running into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Even better, One Nation promises to get rid of the Net Zero Legislation, the Paris Agreement, abolish the Safeguard Mechanism and close the Federal Department of Climate Change.
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*It applies to companies with 100 employees or $50 million in revenue, or $25 million in assets. It may change to a $100m cut off soon, with the Labor revamp.
Heavy rain can more than double the speed of the Sít’ Kusá (Turner) Glacier in Alaska, especially during its slower “quiescent” phase, according to GPS measurements linked to rainfall.
The study examined a temperate surge- type glacier in southeast Alaska’s St. Elias Mountains using ten on- ice GPS stations (plus off-ice references) recording surface speeds roughly every 15 seconds, combined with modeled rainfall (e.g., from ERA5).
Particularly intense or prolonged rain could temporarily slow the glacier during the surge phase (possibly by forcing temporary drainage adjustments), but speeds typically recovered to pre- event levels within about two weeks.
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Heavy rain can more than double the speed of the Sít’ Kusá (Turner) Glacier in Alaska, especially during its slower “quiescent” phase, according to GPS measurements linked to rainfall.
This comes from a 2026 EGUsphere preprint (under review forThe Cryosphere) by Parker Wilkerson, Ellyn Enderlin, and colleagues at Boise State University and the University of Idaho. The popular- science framing matches reports like those on Phys.org.
The study examined a temperate surge- type glacier in southeast Alaska’s St. Elias Mountains using ten on- ice GPS stations (plus off-ice references) recording surface speeds roughly every 15 seconds, combined with modeled rainfall (e.g., from ERA5).
Key findings on rain-induced speed- ups:
Researchers identified large rain events and checked for following speed anomalies (via short- term vs. long- term speed ratios), then measured each anomaly’s timing, peak magnitude, duration, and percent change.
During the end of a surge (2020- 2021): 9 of 16 large rain events (56%) triggered speed-ups. These averaged a peak of about 7.5 m/day (116% increase over pre- event speeds) and lasted ~66.5 hours. Accelerations often began ~12 hours after rain onset.
During quiescence (2022- 2024): Speed-ups were somewhat less frequent (17 of 37 events, or 46%), smaller in absolute terms (~1.5 m/day), and shorter (~33 hours), but they showed a much larger relative increase, averaging 251% (more than double, and sometimes higher). Response lagged longer (~32 hours on average).
The differences point to a more efficient subglacial drainage system (better-connected channels that can handle extra water without as much pressure buildup) during quiescence. Even so, rain still caused clear accelerations in both phases, indicating a persistently inefficient component of the drainage system (isolated cavities or similar features) that lets water pressure rise and reduce basal friction, boosting sliding.
Particularly intense or prolonged rain could temporarily slow the glacier during the surge phase (possibly by forcing temporary drainage adjustments), but speeds typically recovered to pre- event levels within about two weeks.
Overall, the work supports the idea that surge- related drainage changes are not a simple on and off switch and shows that rainfall can noticeably modulate speeds on both fast- and slow- flowing temperate glaciers.
This builds on prior observations that sudden water inputs (heavy rain, extreme melt, or lake drainage) can overwhelm subglacial systems and cause short-lived speed- ups lasting hours to days. The high- resolution GPS records here provide detailed quantification across a full surge cycle at one well- studied Alaskan glacier.
Sít’ Kusá (Turner Glacier), Alaska. Credit: Kate Bollen/Boise State University
The methods section (Section 2 of the preprint) is detailed and carefully designed to isolate short- term rain- driven speed changes from longer- term surge- related variability.
Here’s a structured breakdown:
2.1 Study Site
Sít’ Kusá (Turner Glacier) is a temperate surge- type glacier in the St. Elias Mountains of southeast Alaska.
The authors divide it into four main zones for context:
Upper- northern tributary
Icefall (surface elevation drops ~500 m between 20.5- 22.5 km from the terminus)
Reservoir zone (from the base of the icefall to the dynamic balance line at ~7- 8 km from the terminus)
Receiving zone (from the dynamic balance line to the terminus)
All GPS stations used for the main analysis were located in the reservoir zone.
2.2 GPS Processing
They used 12 GPS records:
10 on- ice stations in the reservoir zone
2 off- ice (“Rock”) stations for reference and noise characterization
Instrument details:
NetR9 GPS receivers from the EarthScope Consortium
Recorded positions every 15 seconds
Deployed 2020- 2024, but usable records are mostly limited to late summer through early fall (July- mid- November) due to power issues and deep snow burial in winter
Processing pipeline (applied uniformly):
Post-processing: Canadian Precise Point Positioning (CPPP) referenced to the Yukon GPS Epoch (2002.0). Positions converted to UTM and time shifted to Alaska Standard Time.
Smoothing and Velocity calculation: Rolling centered moving- window linear (polynomial) fit on Northing and Easting positions.
Window size = 1 day
Required ≥90% of expected samples (5760 positions) in each window to accept the velocity estimate.
Time- domain filtering: Low-pass 4th- order Butterworth filter applied separately to Northing and Easting components.
Corner frequency selected as 0.9 cycles/day after testing (0.1- 4 cycles/day).
This frequency best removed atmospheric, ionospheric noise (peaks at 1, 2, 3, 4 cycles, day observed on the stationary Rock10 station) while preserving sub-daily to multi- day signals of interest.
Note: This also attenuated natural diurnal melt- driven oscillations, which the authors accepted because their focus was rain events.
Along-flow speed calculation: Magnitude of the filtered velocity vector.
Detrending: Critical step to isolate short- term anomalies from longer- term surge- related trends.
During the surge: Smoothing spline fit to the 6- day minima of the speed record (background “floor”).
During quiescence: Simple average of the entire record.
The background trend was subtracted from the speed time series.
Window size of 6 days was chosen after testing shorter and longer windows to avoid over- or under- fitting individual events.
Downscaled to the glacier surface using ArcticDEM elevations and the precipitation component of the Energy Balance Firn Model (EBFM; van Pelt et al., 2012).
Elevation correction formula:P(z)=PERA(1+γ100z) where γ=0.1 (10% increase in precipitation per 100 m elevation gain) and z is the elevation difference.
Validation: Visual comparison with daily precipitation at Yakutat Airport (~55 km south). Magnitudes were broadly similar; Yakutat records typically led the modeled data (as expected for coastal- to- inland weather progression). No quantitative statistical validation was possible due to the remote location and lack of on-glacier rain gauges distinguishing rain vs. snow.
Analysis of rain impacts was restricted to 1 July- 15 November each year (GPS data availability and cessation of modeled meltwater equivalent output, after which precipitation is assumed to fall as snow or refreeze).
Applied a short- term and long- term average (STA and LTA) ratio to the detrended speeds (a method commonly used in seismology and GPS studies).
STA window = 0.75 days
LTA window = 90 days
Peaks in the STA and LTA ratio were identified with MATLAB’s findpeaks (threshold ratio > 1.9; minimum 2- day separation).
Additional filters and manual quality control:
Minimum absolute speed increase of 0.65 m/day (to avoid noise during quiescence).
Manual inspection removed 4 false positives and added 1 missed event → final total of 37 speed anomalies.
Large rain event identification:
MATLAB findpeaks on the rain rate time series.
Threshold: peak rate > 2 mm/h (average peak of selected events was 3.5 mm/h, ~95th percentile).
Minimum separation of 1 day between events.
Compound events (two closely spaced rains producing one continuous speed anomaly) were merged.
Linking rain and speed:
A speed anomaly was classified as rain- induced (high sensitivity) if it occurred within a 6- day window after the start of a large rain event.
Periods without a corresponding speed anomaly were labeled low sensitivity.
For quantitative characterization, speed and rain series were averaged into 4-hour blocks.
Characteristic speed profiles were created for high- vs. low- sensitivity periods in both surge and quiescence phases. Additional ice displacement attributable to speed- ups was calculated by subtracting the low- sensitivity displacement from the high- sensitivity displacement.
This careful combination of high-frequency GPS processing, noise removal, detrending, and dual thresholding (speed and rain) allowed the authors to robustly quantify differences in the glacier’s response to rainfall under contrasting drainage- system conditions.
Time lags from the start of a rainfall event leading to increased glacier speeds (gray shaded box) during surge and quiescence periods. Credit: Wilkerson et al., 2026.
Rain- induced speed- up events of a temperate surging glacier, AK, inferred from GPS measurements
This study examines how heavy rainfall affects the surface speed of Sít’ Kusá (also known as Turner Glacier), a temperate surge- type glacier in the St. Elias Mountains of southeast Alaska.
The researchers used high- resolution GPS records from the glacier surface, paired with modeled rainfall, to compare the glacier’s kinematic response during the end of a surge (2020– 2021) versus the subsequent quiescent (slow-flow) phase (2022– 2024).
Surge- type glaciers alternate between short periods of rapid flow (surges) and longer periods of slow flow (quiescence).
These changes are strongly linked to the efficiency of the subglacial drainage system (isolated cavities = inefficient; connected channels = efficient). The study tests how short- term pulses of rainwater interact with these systems.
Methods (summary)
10 on- ice GPS stations in the reservoir zone and 2 off -ice reference stations.
GPS units recorded positions every 15 seconds (NetR9 systems).
Data processing: precise point positioning, smoothing (1- day moving window), low- pass Butterworth filtering to remove atmospheric noise, and detrending.
Records mainly cover late summer to early fall due to power and snowpack limitations.
Rainfall was modeled (primarily ERA5 data).
Speed anomalies were identified by comparing short- term vs. long- term average speeds. Only anomalies following large rain events were analyzed for duration, magnitude, percent increase, and lag time.
Key Results
During the surge (2020– 2021):
9 of 16 large rain events (56%) triggered speed- ups.
Average peak speed increase:7.5 m/day (116% above pre- event speeds).
Average duration:~66.5 hours.
Acceleration typically began ~12 hours after rain onset.
During quiescence (2022– 2024):
17 of 37 large rain events (46%) triggered speed-ups.
Absolute increases were smaller (~1.5 m/day).
Average duration: ~33 hours.
Relative increases were much larger: average 251% (more than double the pre-event speed).
Response lag was longer (~32 hours on average).
Particularly large, prolonged rain events sometimes caused temporary slow downs during the surge phase, but speeds generally returned to pre- event levels within less than two weeks.
Interpretation
The larger absolute, longer- lasting, and more frequent speed- ups during the surge are consistent with a less efficient subglacial drainage system (higher basal water pressures and greater sliding sensitivity).
The higher percentage increases during quiescence occur because the background speeds are much lower.
Speed- ups in both phases indicate that some inefficient drainage components persist throughout the surge cycle (i.e., there is not a complete binary switch between inefficient and efficient systems).
Rain can therefore modulate the speeds of both fast- flowing (surging) and slow- flowing (quiescent) temperate glaciers.
Broader Significance
The work supports recent views that glacier surge dynamics involve more gradual or incomplete changes in drainage system configuration rather than abrupt on and off switches.
It also improves understanding of how extreme rainfall events, expected to become more common in a warming climate, can rapidly influence glacier motion and potentially contribute to mass loss or instability.
Status: Open for discussion until 5 December 2026. Full PDF and supplement are available on the EGUsphere page.
Preprint: EGUsphere, (discussion started 22 October 2026; under review for The Cryosphere)
Authors: Parker Wilkerson, Ellyn Enderlin, Yoram Terleth, Jukes Liu, and Jake Anderson
Abstract.
Temperate surge-type glaciers undergo periodic order-of-magnitude increases in flow speeds generally attributed to drainage system evolution, making them ideal sites to explore how the kinematic response of glaciers to rain events varies with subglacial drainage system efficiency. Here, we compare ten GPS-derived glacier surface speed records with modeled rainfall to assess short-term evolutions of the drainage system at the end of a surge (2020–2021) and during quiescent flow (2022–2024) at Sít’ Kusá, Alaska. Speed anomalies were identified using a short-term to long-term average ratio approach and all speed anomalies that followed large rain events were characterized by their duration, magnitude, and immediacy. During the surge, 9 of 16 large rain events (56%) caused speed anomalies, peaking at 7.5 m/d (116% increase) and lasting 66.5 hours on average. During quiescence, rain-induced speed-ups were less frequent (17 of 37 rain events (46%)), smaller (~1.5 m/d), shorter (~33 hours), but greater in percent increase (251%). Although the differences in speed characteristics generally indicate that the drainage system is more efficient during quiescence, speed-ups throughout the surge cycle suggest there is a persistently inefficient component of the drainage system. We find that particularly large and prolonged rain events can cause temporary slow-downs during the surge, but that speeds return to pre-event levels in less than two weeks as the drainage system reverts to its inefficient state. Our work supports recent analyses of glacier instabilities suggesting there isn’t a binary switch in drainage system configuration during surges. More broadly, our findings expand our understanding of glacier kinematic responses to rainfall, demonstrating that rain events can modulate speeds of both fast- and slow-flowing glaciers.
Another year has passed, another ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will convene. Next Monday the travelling circus pitches its tent again, this time in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Antalya, for COP31, which runs from November 9th to the 20th. Some 100,000 participants are expected.
Meanwhile, the UN has quietly moved the goalposts. UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2026, pointedly titled The Point of Return, concedes that limiting warming to 1.5°C without significant overshoot is no longer achievable.
Another year has passed, another ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will convene. Next Monday the travelling circus pitches its tent again, this time in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Antalya, for COP31, which runs from November 9th to the 20th. Some 100,000 participants are expected. Apart from the usual grand-sounding communiqués, more breast-beating by the climate NGOs and alarmist headlines by the legacy media, nothing much of practical significance will come out of COP31 in Türkiye.
After a bruising contest between rival bidders, Turkey won the right to host while Australia’s Climate and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, was handed the gavel as “President of Negotiations”. One country hosts, another negotiates, and the Pacific islands, with Australia’s help, got a pre-COP of their own. The World Resources Institute’s David Waskow has summed up the defining context of the summit as “heat and Hormuz”, referring to this year’s blistering summer in Europe which supposedly proved that climate crisis is upon us, and to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which cut off a significant share of the world’s oil and gas supplies and sent prices soaring.
The Hormuz effect
The climate Establishment has spent months arguing that both Europe’s hot summer and the Hormuz supply shock prove its case. Call it the Hormuz effect: first Ukraine, now Iran – every war in an oil- or gas-producing region exposes our dependence on what Ed Miliband, the UK’s previous energy secretary and now Foreign Minister, called “petrostates and dictators”. The only answer, claims Miliband and fellow climate ideologues in the EU, is “home-grown renewables” that no despot can switch off. UN climate chief Simon Stiell says fossil fuel dependency is “ripping away national security and sovereignty”. At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin in April, ministers sensed an opportunity to recast wind and solar as guarantors of energy security, and Britain’s climate minister, Katie White, called the transition “even more imperative”.
It is a curious reading of events. A country at the mercy of imported hydrocarbons might conclude that it should produce more of its own, as Washington has done, rather than double down on intermittent power that needs gas-fired backup on every windless winter evening. Nor is swapping dependence on Gulf oil for dependence on Chinese panels and minerals an obvious gain in sovereignty.
The host’s revealed preference
The Government hosting COP31 is a case in point. Economists have a useful rule: judge people by what they do, not by what they say. Weeks before welcoming the world to Antalya, Türkiye’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar stood beside Iraq’s Oil Minister and pitched the port of Ceyhan as a “global energy hub” and an alternative to Hormuz, with plans to expand Iraqi pipeline capacity and bring in Qatari gas. A Global Witness analysis of Rystad Energy data projects that the state oil company TPAO will nearly triple its gas production by 2035. Ankara is not abandoning oil and gas. It is positioning itself to collect transit fees on them.
Then there is coal. It still supplies nearly one-third of Türkiye’s electricity, propped up by a guaranteed-price purchase scheme for coal plants that runs to 2030. In June, the Government announced a 1,050 MW expansion of the Cenal coal power plant. When a court struck down the planned expansion of the Afşin-Elbistan lignite plant, the environment ministry, headed by none other than COP31 President Murat Kurum, appealed the ruling. Across the world in Canberra, Bowen’s own Government recently approved an extension of the Saraji open-cut coal mine in Queensland.
The green lobby frames all this as a “credibility” problem for the COP31 hosts. It is nothing of the sort. It is revealed preference. Governments answerable to voters who pay electricity bills and fill petrol tanks will protect energy security first and recite climate pledges second. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said as much, warning that any proposal failing to reconcile climate objectives with social and economic realities is doomed to fail. That may well be the most honest sentence uttered by anyone associated with COP31.
Electrify everything – but with what?
With no agreement on fossil fuels in prospect, the Turkish Presidency’s centrepiece is a voluntary pledge, dubbed ‘35-by-35’, to raise electricity’s share of global energy demand from around 20% today to 35% by 2035. Campaigners were dismayed to find that the text does not ask governments to commit to producing the extra power from clean sources; it says only that the use of clean electricity will vary according to national circumstances. Activists warn that the pledge could allow governments to count expanded gas-fired generation as progress.
From their standpoint, they are right to worry. Around one-third of the world’s electricity is still generated from coal. More fundamentally, electricity remains only a fifth or so of final energy consumption. The rest is the direct burning of oil, gas and coal for transport, industrial heat, petrochemicals, fertilisers and much else that intermittent solar panels and wind turbines cannot provide for. A technology-neutral electrification target is a tacit admission that the decarbonisation of the other four-fifths will not be delivered by UN declarations.
There is a further twist. The fastest-growing source of new power demand in the rich world is artificial intelligence, and data centres need electricity around the clock. The IEA expects their demand to double by 2030; in the United States, gas already supplies 40% of it, and the IEA credits American data-centre demand with supporting coal burn too. The AI boom is being built on gas, coal and nuclear, because wind, solar and batteries cannot feed a voracious appetite for baseload power.
And the cheapest and most reliable source for much of Asia remains coal. The IEA’s mid-year update now expects global coal demand to rise by 1.2% in 2026 to a record 8.94 billion tonnes, reversing its earlier forecast of decline. China and India together account for around 70% of global consumption. If Old King Coal was the elephant in every meeting room at COP28 in Dubai, in Antalya he will paying for the room.
Roadmaps to nowhere
At COP30 in Belém, Brazil last year, more than 80 countries backed a “roadmap” to transition away from fossil fuels, but major oil producers and several emerging economies refused any reference to it in the negotiated text. This week Brazil published that voluntary roadmap, declaring the transition urgent and inevitable, while its officials stressed that it was a call to voluntary action and not a document to be negotiated at COP31. The phase-out of fossil fuels is not even a formal agenda item in Antalya. Instead, the talk is of countries following transition roadmaps ‘tailored’ to their own circumstances and constraints, which in practice means each government will do what it was going to do anyway.
Frustrated by the consensus rule that lets oil producers say no, the zealots have started a parallel track. In April, 57 countries met in Santa Marta, Colombia, for the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels; China, Russia and the United States were not invited. It produced only voluntary workstreams, and a Fossil Fuel Treaty backed by just 18 countries did not make the final text. David Wojick of CFACT asks whether such a treaty could become a still more radical rival to the UNFCCC, competing for a shrinking pool of money now that Trump’s America has walked away.
The final outcome in Antalya, too, is being pre-softened. Australia and Turkey will produce a “presidency-led” cover decision which, unlike other formal texts, is not negotiated word by word between governments. After 30 years in which every term of every communiqué was fought over through the night, the COP process is drifting from treaty-making towards a bazaar of voluntary pledges on transition roadmaps and electrification.
Meanwhile, the UN has quietly moved the goalposts. UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2026, pointedly titled The Point of Return, concedes that limiting warming to 1.5°C without significant overshoot is no longer achievable. Launching it, Secretary-General António Guterres declared that the mission is now to make any overshoot “as small and as short as possible”. The 1.5°C figure was always an arbitrary limit conjured for the convenience of politicians. Now that it has been formally abandoned, nobody in the climate bureaucracy proposes winding down the apparatus built to defend it. Instead, we get a new target and a plea to return from overshoot.
Delivery without dollars
At one level, every COP is about money: how much Western governments will pay to impose green solutions on themselves, and how much more they will pay, in the form of ‘climate finance’, to persuade the rest of the world to follow. The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” built that asymmetry into the system. At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, rich countries pledged $300 billion a year against the $1.3 trillion demanded by developing countries, papering over the gap with a “roadmap” whose first implementation update is due in Antalya.
This year the chequebook is staying shut. An internal EU document seen by Reuters says there is “no scope” for new climate funding commitments at COP31. Instead, Brussels will push a “mitigation package” to turn countries’ existing pledges into real-world emission cuts. In other words: deliver on your promises, but don’t expect us to pay for it.
The EU also wants to globalise the “Just Transition Mechanism” agreed in principle at Belém, modelled on its own scheme for Europe’s coal regions: in effect, a fund for the oil, gas and coal workers to be put out of work while the world “transitions” to renewables. But at the Bonn talks in June, as the African Group demanded grants, Britain insisted the mechanism “is not about finance”. A just transition with no money attached is a slogan, not a mechanism.
Why the sudden parsimony? Trump’s counter-revolution has shut the biggest spigot of all. Antalya is the first COP since America’s second exit from the Paris Agreement took effect, on January 27th 2026, and the White House has announced its withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention itself, the first nation ever to do so. Washington no longer merely abstains from globalist schemes but blocks them, as when its diplomats, with Saudi Arabia, got the International Maritime Organisation to defer its global carbon levy on shipping last year.
Europe cannot fill the gap. The collective West, minus Trump’s America, is itself running on empty: Britain and France are weighed down by massive debts and deficits, Germany is emerging from years of stagnation amid high energy costs and deindustrialisation, and NATO members have pledged to raise defence and security spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. Money spent on tanks and air defences cannot also be spent on solar farms in Africa. For decades, climate finance has been a game of bootleggers and Baptists: pledge allegiance to the cause and collect the grants. Developing countries were always going to put their citizens’ legitimate aspirations ahead of Western demands to forgo the fossil fuels that made the West rich, a form of climate colonialism that Africa’s leaders have increasingly rejected.
Martyrs, campaigners and scapegoats
With Australia holding the gavel, the small island states will again take centre stage, fresh from a Pacific pre-COP and its Taku Pakasoa Declaration. Rupert Darwall, whose new book I recently reviewed, has dissected the role of these “climate martyrs” and their disappearing islands, a staple of every COP. Inconveniently, a 2018 study found that Tuvalu’s land area actually grew by 2.9% between 1971 and 2014.
As usual at the COP carnivals, the NGOs and their media allies will be out in force. After wildfires near Antalya in September, 350.org demanded that Turkey announce a coal phase-out timeline before the summit. For the campaigners, the spoilers of recent COPs are easy to name: a US President who calls climate change a “hoax” and the ‘defeatism’ of Bill Gates, whose U-turn on climate catastrophism gave the game away. That voters and Asian power planners have simply weighed the costs and found Net Zero wanting is not a possibility they entertain.
That leaves Europe and Britain as the last true believers, still preaching the gospel of climate leadership to a congregation that has largely left the church.
COP31, yet another damp squib?
What, then, should we expect from Antalya? A clutch of voluntary pledges; a “roadmap” that nobody is obliged to follow; a “just transition” mechanism without the money to make it work. Plenty of solemn warnings about overshoot, and rather less said about the coal demand records, the gas-fired data centres, the Ceyhan pipeline plans and the Queensland mine extensions. The 100,000 participants will fly home, and the world’s energy system will carry on much as before, governed by the arithmetic of cost, reliability and security rather than the theology of climate conferences.
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.
During the African Humid Period (roughly 11,000- 5,000 years ago, with some definitions extending the onset earlier to ~14.5- 15 ka), enhanced monsoon rainfall greened the Sahara with lakes, rivers, and vegetation, while also supporting the growth and expansion of tropical glaciers on high East African peaks such as Kilimanjaro.
A return of African Humid Period (AHP)- like conditions today, much stronger West African monsoon rainfall, widespread greening of the Sahara and Sahel with savannah, grasslands, woodlands, expanded lakes (e.g., a revived Mega-Chad), and flowing rivers, would transform North and West Africa while producing significant regional and global climate teleconnections.
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During the African Humid Period (roughly 11,000- 5,000 years ago, with some definitions extending the onset earlier to ~14.5- 15 ka), enhanced monsoon rainfall greened the Sahara with lakes, rivers, and vegetation, while also supporting the growth and expansion of tropical glaciers on high East African peaks such as Kilimanjaro.
Ice- core evidence from Kilimanjaro’s Northern Ice Field shows basal ice dating to the early Holocene (~11.7–9- 10 ka BP). Comparison of oxygen- isotope records indicate glacier growth began early in the African Humid Period, with the ice fields expanding under the wetter conditions of that interval.
The same enhanced moisture that raised lake levels across northern and equatorial Africa (by tens to over 100 m in places) and expanded vegetation into the Sahara also increased snowfall accumulation on the high peaks, allowing ice to build up even though regional temperatures were generally warmer than in the preceding glacial period.
Tropical glaciers on Kilimanjaro (and nearby peaks such as Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori) are highly sensitive to precipitation and humidity in addition to temperature.
Higher moisture and cloud cover during the African Humid Period improved the mass balance enough for net growth and expansion relative to drier intervals. Moraine and exposure- age data also document early Holocene glacial features on these mountains.
After the African Humid Period ended (around 5- 4 ka in many records), drier conditions returned, lake levels fell, the Sahara aridified, and the ice fields contracted.
The surviving ice on Kilimanjaro has continued to respond to later Holocene moisture and temperature fluctuations, but the modern rapid retreat is occurring under a different combination of reduced precipitation, increased sublimation, ablation, and warming. The continuous presence of ice since the early Holocene makes the current loss notable in that context.
In short, the same orbital- driven strengthening of the African monsoon that created the “Green Sahara” also supplied the moisture that allowed Kilimanjaro’s (and other East African) tropical glaciers to grow during that interval.
The African Humid Period (AHP; roughly 14.5- 5.5 ka, peaking ~11- 5 ka) was primarily driven by orbital changes that strengthened and expanded the West African (and broader African) monsoon, amplified by positive feedback involving the land surface, vegetation, oceans, and other factors.
Primary Driver: Orbital (Milankovitch) Forcing
Earth’s orbital precession (the ~21,000- year “wobble” of its axis) is the dominant control. During the early- to- mid Holocene, precession aligned Northern Hemisphere summer with perihelion (Earth’s closest approach to the Sun). This boosted summer insolation over North Africa by ~7- 8% relative to today.
Higher summer heating of the North African landmass (which has lower thermal inertia than the ocean) intensified the land- sea temperature and pressure contrast. This strengthened the summer monsoon, drew more moisture inland from the Atlantic (and to some extent other sources), and shifted the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and rain- belt farther north into the Sahel and Sahara.
Precession paces North African humid periods over hundreds of thousands of years (and longer). Eccentricity modulates the amplitude of the precession signal, and high- latitude ice sheets can suppress humid periods during glacial times even at favorable precession phases. Obliquity (axial tilt) plays a secondary role.
Amplifying Feedback
Orbital insolation changes alone are insufficient in climate models to produce the full observed greening, lake expansions (e.g., Mega- Chad), and rainfall increases.
Key positive feedback include:
Vegetation- albedo feedback: Expanding grasslands and shrubs lowered surface albedo (darker vegetation absorbs more sunlight), further heating the land, enhancing convection, and drawing in more moisture. Vegetation, soil-moisture, and surface- water (lakes and wetlands) feedback collectively amplified precipitation substantially.
Ocean and atmospheric feedback: Changes in Atlantic sea- surface temperatures, moisture transport, and atmospheric circulation (including jets) reinforced the monsoon.
Other influences on timing: Strengthening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) after deglacial meltwater events helped position the ITCZ northward and contributed to relatively abrupt onsets. Residual Northern Hemisphere ice sheets could delay the peak humidity. Greenhouse- gas increases played a minor direct role compared with insolation and ice- sheet effects.
The AHP began after the Last Glacial Maximum as insolation rose and ice sheets retreated, with relatively rapid transitions in many records once insolation crossed thresholds and feedbacks engaged.
It ended gradually overall as summer insolation declined, but with locally abrupt aridification in some areas (possibly involving vegetation and dust feedback or high- latitude cooling that weakened tropical circulation). The end was time- transgressive, occurring later at lower latitudes in some reconstructions.
In summary, the AHP is a classic example of orbital pacing of monsoon strength, strongly modified by Earth- system feedback that turned a moderate insolation change into a dramatic regional climate shift, the “Green Sahara”. Similar humid periods recurred throughout the Quaternary (and earlier) under comparable orbital configurations.
A return of African Humid Period (AHP)- like conditions today, much stronger West African monsoon rainfall, widespread greening of the Sahara and Sahel with savannah, grasslands, woodlands, expanded lakes (e.g., a revived Mega-Chad), and flowing rivers, would transform North and West Africa while producing significant regional and global climate teleconnections.
It would not be an exact replica of the mid- Holocene AHP, because today’s boundary conditions differ (higher CO₂, no residual ice sheets of the same scale, modern land use, and different orbital configuration), but model studies of “Green Sahara” scenarios and analogs provide strong guidance.
Local and Regional Impacts in Africa
Hydrology and landscape: Annual rainfall would rise dramatically across the present- day Sahara and Sahel (hundreds of mm/year in many areas, locally more). Large permanent or seasonal lakes, wetlands, and river systems would reappear or expand. Dust emissions from the Sahara (currently Earth’s largest source) would drop sharply due to vegetation cover and wetter soils.
Vegetation and ecosystems: Desert would shift to grassland and savannah, with some woodland in wetter zones. Biodiversity would change, expansion of flora and fauna adapted to wetter conditions, potential recovery of species whose ranges contracted after the AHP, but also losses or shifts for strict desert specialists. More standing water would likely increase disease vectors (e.g., mosquitoes).
Agriculture, water and society: Vast new potential for rain- fed farming, grazing, and water resources in currently marginal or uninhabitable areas. This could boost food security, support larger populations, and create economic opportunities in the Sahel and Sahara. However, existing infrastructure, cities, and farming systems (adapted to aridity) would face flooding, soil erosion, and the need for major adaptation. Land- use conflicts, migration into newly productive areas, and geopolitical tensions over water and territory are plausible. Projects like the Great Green Wall already explore partial, managed greening and show potential rainfall increases and local cooling, but a full natural AHP- scale shift would be far larger and less controlled.
Broader Climate and Remote Effects
Climate models of mid- Holocene Green Sahara conditions (and related experiments with prescribed vegetation and reduced dust) show that Sahara greening is not purely local:
Strengthened monsoon and lower albedo (darker vegetation absorbs more sunlight) enhance local heating and convection, further amplifying rainfall via positive feedbacks.
Teleconnections include shifts in the ITCZ and Walker circulation, influences on other monsoons, changes in ENSO variability (often reduced), and effects on tropical cyclone activity (some studies indicate fewer North Atlantic storms under greened Sahara conditions due to altered wind shear and moisture).
Remote drying is frequently simulated over parts of South America (including the Amazon) in Green Sahara experiments. Other possible effects include altered precipitation and temperatures in Europe, the Mediterranean, and parts of Asia, plus influences on high- latitude climate (e.g., Arctic responses in some solar-farm or greening analogs that mimic albedo and vegetation changes).
Dust reduction alone has climatic effects (more solar radiation reaching the surface, changes in ocean fertilization downstream). Combined vegetation and dust changes amplify monsoon strengthening beyond orbital forcing alone.
A true AHP return would require orbital precession driving substantially higher Northern Hemisphere summer insolation (as occurred ~11- 5 ka), which is not the case today. Anthropogenic warming may increase Sahel rainfall in some projections, but models do not generally produce a full Green Sahara under 21st- century scenarios.
Higher modern CO₂, different greenhouse-gas and aerosol backgrounds, and human land- use modifications would interact with any greening in complex ways, some amplifying, some damping.
In short, an AHP- like return would turn much of the Sahara into a productive, vegetated landscape with major benefits for water and agriculture in Africa, sharply cut global dust loading, and rearrange atmospheric circulation enough to affect weather and climate on other continents (notably potential drying in parts of South America).
The transition would bring large adaptation challenges, risks of conflict or displacement, and irreversible ecosystem shifts. Managed partial greening (e.g., via reforestation) is already under discussion precisely because of these powerful local and remote levers.
The Independent, in its article “On the brink of ruin due to climate change, Pacific Islanders know who is to blame,” by Alex Croft, presents river flooding in Fiji, coastal erosion, and the supposed impending disappearance of Tuvalu as evidence that Pacific Islanders are already living on the “frontline of the climate crisis.” This is misleading.
The Independent, in its article “On the brink of ruin due to climate change, Pacific Islanders know who is to blame,” by Alex Croft, presents river flooding in Fiji, coastal erosion, and the supposed impending disappearance of Tuvalu as evidence that Pacific Islanders are already living on the “frontline of the climate crisis.” This is misleading. The observational record shows that floods caused by tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall are longstanding features of Fiji, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expresses low confidence in global changes in river-flood magnitude or frequency, and peer-reviewed research shows that Tuvalu has actually gained land area during decades of rising sea level.
The Independent begins with the story of a family living beside Fiji’s Nadi River, where four neighboring homes were reportedly swept away by flooding. The reporter immediately transforms that flood into climate change, calling the village the “frontline of the climate crisis” and later declaring that flooding is increasingly common in Fiji and other Pacific islands.
But a river flooding after heavy tropical rainfall is a weather event. Demonstrating that climate change caused it, or even materially worsened it, requires considerably more evidence than pointing at a flooded riverbank. Ironically, The Independent eventually provides a perfectly ordinary meteorological explanation for what is happening. The Sabeto Valley communities are located beside mountain streams only a few kilometers from the ocean, and, the article acknowledges, “During tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall causes disastrous sudden rises in the level of the river.”
Exactly. Tropical cyclone. Heavy rain. River rises. Flood. Where in that sequence did the reporter establish that carbon dioxide caused the flood? He didn’t.
Even the IPCC is far more cautious about flooding than The Independent. Section 11.5.2 of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, dealing specifically with observed flood trends, notes that its earlier assessments found “low confidence for observed changes in the magnitude or frequency of floods at the global scale.” AR6 says studies show increases in some regions and decreases in others, while the hydrological literature remains heterogeneous and difficult to synthesize globally. See the table from that report below, note the highlight in yellow.
That is a long way from The Independent’s implication that a flooded Fijian riverbank can simply be labeled climate change.
There is also actual historical flood data from Fiji that The Independent might have consulted before declaring the case closed. A peer-reviewed study, “Flooding in Fiji: findings from a 100-year historical series,” reconstructed the Ba River flood record in northwestern Viti Levu from 1892 through 2002. Floodwaters reached the local sugar mill approximately once every four years, yet the researchers found no increase in the frequency of major floods during the 20th century, despite substantial land-use changes and river-channel siltation. The study found that major floods were produced by tropical cyclones and tropical rainstorms.
An even longer follow-up study examined a 122-year record of major flooding on Fiji’s Ba River. Once again, the researchers found no statistically significant increase in the frequency of major floods over time.
That is observational evidence extending back to the nineteenth century. It is considerably more informative than interviewing somebody standing beside a river and declaring the water to be climate change.
None of this means floods aren’t dangerous. Nadi has experienced numerous serious floods, and flood-control infrastructure is entirely sensible. The Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific reports 26 major floods in the Nadi catchment since 1991 alone, including the devastating January 2009 event that killed 11 people and left approximately 12,000 homeless. That is precisely why Australia is helping finance flood modeling and mitigation infrastructure there.
But the existence of floods does not establish a climate trend, much less attribution to greenhouse gases.
Even more remarkably, The Independent provides evidence of a major non-climate factor affecting local vulnerability. It reports that large mangrove swamps around Denarau Island once provided natural protection against severe weather. Then, according to the article, many of those century-old mangroves were removed to construct luxury hotels because they interfered with tourists’ access to the sea and didn’t fit the desired manicured landscape.
So natural flood protection was removed for coastal development, hotels were built in vulnerable locations, and now nearby flooding is presented to readers as evidence of the “climate crisis.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
Then The Independent trots out Tuvalu, the perennial poster child for supposedly disappearing Pacific islands. The article says the situation is so dire that Tuvalu has created a “digital nation” to preserve itself after its physical territory supposedly disappears beneath the waves.
There is just one problem with that narrative.
Tuvalu isn’t disappearing.
A landmark 2018 peer-reviewed study in Nature Communications, “Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations,” examined aerial and satellite imagery of all 101 islands of Tuvalu between 1971 and 2014. During that period, local sea level rose approximately 3.9 millimeters per year. Yet Tuvalu’s total land area increased by 73.5 hectares, or 2.9 percent. Eight of its nine atolls increased in land area, and 73 of its 101 individual islands grew.
Read that again. Sea level rose, and Tuvalu got bigger.
The researchers concluded that their findings “challenge perceptions of island loss” and show that atoll islands are dynamic landforms. Wave action moves sand, coral debris, and sediment around reef platforms. Islands can erode in one location, accrete in another, migrate across the reef surface, change shape, and in many cases increase in area.
This is the scientific reality behind the shorthand sometimes used to say coral atolls “float” with sea level. They don’t literally float like boats. Rather, living reefs, carbonate production, waves, currents, and sediment transport create dynamic landforms capable of changing with their surrounding environment. Climate at a Glance’s discussion of islands and sea-level rise explains the same process and highlights the Tuvalu evidence.
This doesn’t mean Tuvalu faces no problems from sea-level rise. It is extraordinarily low lying, coastal flooding is real, freshwater resources can be vulnerable to saltwater intrusion, and individual shorelines can erode even while total national land area increases. But “Tuvalu faces coastal hazards” is very different from “Tuvalu is disappearing.”
And the people running Tuvalu appear to understand that distinction rather better than Western climate journalists do, because they are building for the future.
That second phase has now produced another eight hectares of newly reclaimed and elevated land on Fogafale. According to UNDP’s announcement, the project cost approximately $17.5 million and was funded by Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
In other words, while newspapers repeatedly tell Western readers that Tuvalu is destined to vanish, Tuvalu is literally making new land.
There is also a financial dimension that The Independent barely explores. Tuvalu has spent years making its threatened status central to its appeals for international climate financing. The Green Climate Fund’s own Tuvalu page lists tens of millions of dollars in project financing associated with the country, plus millions more in approved readiness support. The World Bank has also provided additional grants to support climate and disaster resilience.
Calling that a “grift” is a political judgment rather than a scientific conclusion. What can be documented is that the disappearing-island narrative has become highly useful in attracting international climate finance, while the inconvenient peer-reviewed finding that Tuvalu’s land area increased by 2.9 percent receives vastly less attention.
Indeed, The Independent itself reports that Pacific representatives say existing climate funds are insufficient and demand additional support. Readers might reasonably expect that demand to be reported alongside the millions of dollars already flowing into adaptation projects and the remarkable fact that Tuvalu is simultaneously reclaiming and elevating new land.
There is one final detail readers deserve to know. The Independent discloses at the very end that the reporting trip for this article was funded by Wellcome as part of its “All Rise!” and “Birthright!” campaigns ahead of COP31. The newspaper says Wellcome had no influence over editorial decisions, and there is no evidence establishing otherwise. Still, when a story built around demands for urgent climate action results from a reporting trip financed as part of campaigns promoting climate action ahead of a United Nations climate summit, readers are entitled to consider that context.
The people of Fiji deserve protection from floods. Build levees. Improve drainage. Preserve mangroves instead of bulldozing them for resorts. Strengthen bridges. Improve river management and cyclone warnings. Stop putting vulnerable infrastructure immediately beside eroding riverbanks. Likewise, Tuvalu can continue doing what it is already doing: reclaiming and elevating land, protecting shorelines, improving freshwater infrastructure, and adapting development to a dynamic atoll environment.
What Pacific Islanders don’t need is journalists pointing at every flooded river, eroded bank, or tropical cyclone and announcing that they have witnessed climate change. The IPCC’s own assessment is far more cautious about observed global flood trends. Fiji’s century-long flood record does not show an increase in major flood frequency. Tuvalu’s peer-reviewed land-area record shows the country grew while sea level rose.
Those are not obscure facts. They are readily available scientific evidence, and finding them requires little more than doing the basic research a climate reporter should have done before boarding the plane.
Instead, The Independent took a climate-campaign-funded reporting trip, found tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall, river flooding, eroding banks, removed mangroves, and low-lying coral islands, then packaged the entire collection as proof of a climate crisis. It substituted anecdotes for trend analysis, assumption for attribution, and a predetermined narrative for the inconvenient observational evidence sitting in plain sight.
That isn’t serious climate journalism. It is advocacy masquerading as reporting.
If this is The Independent’s standard for covering climate science, the thing most obviously in danger of going underwater isn’t Tuvalu. It’s The Independent’s journalistic credibility.
Most of the Pages2k.R code just examines the non-tree-ring proxies in the database and creates basic quality control plots, however climate varies significantly by latitude (Scotese et al., 2021). Due to the seasons and Earth’s orbit around the sun, each latitude band can change its climate at a different rate and not always in the same direction. So, after the individual proxies are processed and plotted, the last section of the R code in Pages2k.R processes the proxies in latitude bands.
The description of the Pages2k.R program is in the Appendix at the end of this post.
In my last post, I discussed the problems with the Pages 2k temperature reconstruction since 0 AD using the Vinther Greenland ice-core proxies (Vinther et al., 2009) as an example. However, many of you may want to inspect more of the Pages 2k proxies, so I am making my R code available for download and provide some documentation of critical parts of it in the appendix to this post. The R code and some of the data necessary can be downloaded here. To get the most out of the appendix and this post, I recommend downloading the code so you can view it as you read.
Making Latitude-band Composite Plots
Most of the Pages2k.R code just examines the non-tree-ring proxies in the database and creates basic quality control plots, however climate varies significantly by latitude (Scotese et al., 2021). Due to the seasons and Earth’s orbit around the sun, each latitude band can change its climate at a different rate and not always in the same direction. So, after the individual proxies are processed and plotted, the last section of the R code in Pages2k.R processes the proxies in latitude bands. The program divides the globe as follows:
Pages2k has a for loop to collect all the final proxy series into each band and plot them. These are all the suitable non-tree-ring proxies in the database. Figure 1 shows four of the plots:
Figure 1. Plots of all the proxies in final_proxies for 60N to 90N, 90S to 60S, 60S to 30S, and 30S to the equator. Tree ring proxies are excluded as well as proxies that were excluded by Pages 2k, or had insufficient data in the calibration period from 1870-2020.
The proxies plotted in figure 1 have all been converted to temperature anomalies from the 1870-1900 mean. The proxies in each plot are searched for years that contain 3 proxies or more. If encountered the mean and standard deviation (sd) are computed as well as the mean + sd and mean – sd. The mean is plotted in blue and the one standard deviation region is shown with light blue shading. Following is the code that does all this:
The use of the R programming pipe or “%>%” and “summarise” are discussed in this post. This R operator is very useful when processing climate data. For more details about the R code see the appendix.
Latitude band plot discussion
Figure 2 shows the remaining latitude bands. The plots are illuminating.
Figure 2. The remaining “final_proxies” latitude band plots. These are for the equator to 30N and 30N to 60N. As in figure 1, tree rings are excluded.
The number of proxies in each latitude band is variable, 60S to 30S only has three proxies and 30S to the equator has 34. The number of proxies and proxy aggregates in each band must be kept in mind when interpreting these plots. In the Arctic (60N-90N), the warmest period (judged only from those years with 3 or more proxies shown in blue) was from 750 AD to 850AD when the Vikings began their conquest of the British Islands and Ireland. Iceland was settled by the Vikings in 874 and Greenland in about 982. According to these limited proxies, this entire period was warmer than today in the Arctic. This is very limited data but it does make sense historically.
In contrast, Antarctic temperatures (90S-60S) were flat according to nearly all the proxies. The Southern Hemisphere (60S-30S) shows the Medieval Warm Period as warm as today where the three proxies agree. It shows a noticeable Little Ice Age from around 1400 to 1600 and second cool period around 1800. Yet the middle southern latitudes have less dramatic changes than the northern middle latitudes in figure 2.
The southern tropics from the equator to 30S also show a modest Medieval Warm Period and a subdued Little Ice Age but the Little Ice Age has moved later in time and corresponds better with the Northern Hemisphere.
The band from the equator to 30N in figure 2 is a bit of a mess, but the longer-term proxies show the Medieval Warm Period to be warmer than today, and this is certainly true for the mid Northern Hemisphere from 30N to 60N in figure 2 on the right.
Longer-term proxies only
The next set of plots only includes longer-term proxies with data from 200 AD or before and from 1900 AD or later. These are shown in figures 3 and 5. This proxy subset shows a flat trend in both the Antarctic and the Arctic, but for different reasons. In the Antarctic all the proxies agree that the trend is flat, except for the borehole temperature survey shown with the long, smooth, loopy record. In the Arctic the individual proxies are very wild and the flat trend in the mean appears to be due to opposing proxies “averaging out.”
In the background, the individual Arctic proxies show the familiar Medieval Warm Period and cooler Little Ice Age. This limited data shows the Arctic is much more active climatically than the Antarctic. The middle Southern Hemisphere band is only represented by one proxy which is anomalously warm in the Little Ice Age and anomalously cool in the Medieval Warm Period. However, the equator to 30S band shows both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age in their respective places, they are just a little more subtle than in the Northern Hemisphere.
Figure 3. Only records with data from 200 AD or before and to 1900 AD or later.
The lone proxy in 60S-30S is “SAm-LagunaChepical.deJong.2013.” These are late summer temperatures (Nov to Feb) from a high elevation lake in a sub-tropical (32°S) Andes glacial lake in Chile. The record was constructed from visible spectrum reflectance spectroscopy, and the record reasonably correlates to NOAA GlobalTemp (R2=0.24 & p=1.7 x 10-9). However, the lake is over 3,000 meters in elevation, it is a summer proxy, and a glacial lake, thus it is not well located as a proxy for the entire Southern Hemisphere middle latitudes. Further, according to the Proxy 2k report summer proxies often do not reflect annual temperature trends in the middle and high latitudes.
The lone long-term proxy in 30S to the equator is “OcnMakassarStrait.Oppo.2009” (Oppo et al., 2009).
The proxy has a distinct Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. The Medieval Warm Period is slightly warmer than today in this proxy. This is an interesting choice of proxy; it is the earliest of three possible proxy aggregates of the same ten Indonesian sediment cores in the Makassar Strait area. The others are Rosenthal et al., 2013 and Linsley et al., 2010. Both Linsley et al. and Oppo et al. present SST (sea surface temperature) proxy aggregates that are complicated by varying flows through the Makassar Strait from the North Pacific, South China Sea, and Indian Oceans. All three proxies are compared in figure 4.
Figure 4. Three Makassar Strait proxy aggregates compared. The black line is the Rosenthal 500-meter depth temperature anomaly, shown with its 1 standard deviation bands as gray shading. Both Oppo and Linsley provide two SST aggregates, and both are shown. The red Linsley aggregate is nearly hidden by the green, as they are nearly identical. All these studies are by the same team and use the same set of sediment cores from the Makassar Strait area but are based on different foraminifera. All aggregates are anomalies from the 1700-1780 mean. Data sources: (Oppo et al., 2009), (Linsley et al., 2010), and (Rosenthal et al., 2013).
The aggregate proxies in figure 4 are all made from a standard formula relating Mg/Ca to temperature (Anand et al., 2003) and are not derived from a correlation to GlobalTemp or HadCRUT4. This is analogous to the Dansgaard (1964 & 1973) “standard” Greenland temperature conversion (Dansgaard, 1964) & (Dansgaard et al., 1973) mentioned in the previous post. Pages2k did not use the raw Mg/Ca data, they used the temperatures provided by Oppo et al. as shown in purple in figure 4 and shown in figure 3 (lower right). Notice that figure 4 is shown with the original 10-year samples from Oppo (2009) and the sample interval used by Pages 2k is variable, but about 5 years, this changes some of the details but clearly they are based on the same data. The Linsley reconstruction (green in figure 4) was also in the Pages 2k database, but was not selected since it stops in 1780 before the instrumental calibration period. Due to the Linsley data, the reference mean used in figure 7 has been moved to 1700 to 1780, which shifts the Oppo curve (in purple) upward about three quarters of a degree from figure 3.
This region is within the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP), which has a current annual average SST of about 29°C, near the maximum possible open ocean surface temperature of about 30°C (Sud et al., 1999). SSTs in this region are an important factor in controling planetary-scale atmospheric circulation, and together with polar temperatures, exert an outsized influence on global climate (Oppo et al., 2009). Of the proxy aggregates provided by Rosenthal et al., is an aggregate of the ocean mixed layer (up to 500 meters depth) temperature in the Makassar Strait. He used foraminifera fossil shells that calcify deeper in the ocean than those used by Oppo and Linsley. At this depth the predominant flow is from the North Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean and it is representative of North Pacific SSTs on climatic time scales. The various aggregates from Oppo (2009) and Linsley (2010) are SST aggregates from surface or shallow dwelling formainifera in the Makassar Strait area, but as you can see in figure 4 they show a similar pattern to the deeper reconstruction by Rosenthal (2013).
Overall, Rosenthal’s aggregate proxy is probably better to use from a climatic perspective because it represents a large area in the North Pacific and sits in or near the IPWP which is a key component of long-term climate changes (Oppo et al., 2009). Figure 5 shows the remaining two long-record proxy collections.
Figure 5. Long-term Pages 2k proxy aggregates for the equator to 30°N and 30°N to 60°N. The blue bars in the right-hand graph are years with three or more proxy values.
The lone proxy in 0-30N is “Ocn-EasternTropicalNorthAtlantic.Kuhnert.2011.” This is an aggregate proxy of eastern tropical Atlantic SSTs (Kuhnert & Mulitza, 2011). The cores used in the study are from offshore Mauritania and strongly reflect (95% confidence) the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) ~64-year oscillation. Overprinted on the AMO pattern, the SSTs in this very limited dataset show a drop from the Medieval Warm Period around 1000 AD into the Little Ice Age from ~1300 to 1850 before warming into the Modern Warm Period, which, at this location, is cooler than the Medieval Warm Period.
The five long records between 30N and 60N show a much larger drop in temperature from the Medieval Warm Period into the depths of the Little Ice Age. The more extreme records in the northern middle latitudes show more than a two degree drop. This is a very limited set of proxies, but it does match historical records.
Limitations of this Analysis
This analysis is exploratory; I wanted to find out what data was used by Pages 2k and look at it proxy-by-proxy. It was never intended to be a formal analysis of the proxies by latitude band or region-by-region. I wanted to see the nuts and bolts. As a result, I skipped over a lot, in particular:
OLS regressions were used for calibration; there are other techniques that could be used.
Proxy sample age uncertainties are ignored, yet they probably exist.
Latitude-band composites are simple averages, with no consideration that sample increments between proxies may not match. No interpolation was done, which would help the analysis.
Some latitude bands contain very few long records. Long records are preferred since they are consistent from beginning to end and not spliced.
Conclusions
One overall conclusion from this limited data is the Antarctic proxy aggregate shows substantially less multi-centennial variability than the Arctic proxy aggregate over the past 2,000 years (see figures 1 & 3). This implies little climate change in the Antarctic over the period, whereas the Arctic (upper left, figures 1 & 3) and IPWP (figures 1 & 3, lower right) have undergone significant changes over the same period. It appears global climate is influenced more by the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics than the Antarctic. This is also suggested by the correlation between the detrended AMO and global mean surface temperature.
It is also possible that the middle Southern Hemispheric latitudes have experienced changes opposite to those seen in the Northern Hemisphere (compare figures 1 and 3). This pattern of the Southern Hemisphere (or portions of it) acting opposite to the Northern is also seen over the entire Holocene as shown in figure 6. This correlates with Earth’s orbital precession, which causes a different pole to face the sun during the summer roughly every 10,000 to 11,000 years at perihelion when Earth is closest to the sun.
Figure 6. Rosenthal’s Makassar Strait aggregate proxy, compare to the close up in figure 7, both in black, compared to the Antarctic Dome C ice core proxy and the Vinther 2009 proxy from the previous post.
The data in this post and the previous post suggest several things:
Using correlations to calibrate a proxy to the instrumental era does not work well. Instead, more established standard conversions like Dansgaard et al. created for d18O for several regions or the Mg/Ca conversion by Anand & Elderfield are preferred. The instrumental period overlap with proxies is too short and the period can be anomalous.
Long-term climate changes can be obscured by regional variability, as seen in the 60N to 90N plots in figures 1 and 3. Fluctuations, either caused by inaccurate dating or natural regional variability, can remove major long-term climatic changes. Even the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age can be removed by averaging.
The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age do exist nearly everywhere, except in Antarctica. These long-term climate anomalies are strongest in the Northern Hemisphere and tropics but they are not globally synchronous.
Combining proxies is very risky. Good proxies are relevant locally if they are supported by historical and archeological data, but they are not accurate or precise enough in either the temperature or time dimensions to be combined. Examining them one at a time with as much local historical data as possible is more illuminating, combining disparate proxies hides important details.
The R program described in the appendix below was mostly used to examine the Pages 2k database and make plots of the non-tree-ring proxies. The next post in this series will present several more focused R programs designed to reanalyze the Pages 2k proxies.
If you are new to R, then download and install it from CRAN as well as RStudio. Then create an empty working directory on your hard drive and unzip my R code zip file (“Pages2k_R_code_Andy_May_v2.zip”) into it. After starting RStudio run “Install critical libraries.r,” it installs the R libraries that you need to run the Pages 2k programs.
The first R Program and downloading the data
After installing the R libraries, load “Pages2K.r” into RStudio. RStudio runs the statement at the cursor when you hold down the crtl key and press enter. You can also highlight multiple statements and press ctrl-enter to run all of them, but be careful, the selection will stay active after they run and pressing almost any key will delete the selected code. So immediately click in the blue highlighted code to clear the selection for safety.
After the program loads the necessary libraries, it sets “root_dir”, which is the working directory. Change the directory in the code to whatever directory contains the Pages2k R code. This is where R will do its work. A directory will be created to receive the plot output (plots/) and another to create text output (csv_files/).
Next Pages2k.r downloads NOAA’s GlobalTemp grid and the Pages2k RData proxy database. The GlobalTemp data is in the variable “nc.” The Pages2k database is stored in a variable called “D,” then Pages 2k checks its length with:
length(names(D))
The number printed should be 647, for 647 proxy files. Next Pages 2k makes an inventory of the proxy types and stores it in a data frame called “Inventory.” Below is the inventory you should see in the RStudio console window:
ArchiveType is a top-level variable in each site record in “D,” it categorizes the proxy. One of the sites is in central Chile, its Pages 2k name is: “SAm-LagunaAculeo.vonGunten.2009.” The original study is by Lucien von Gunten and colleagues (von_Gunten et al., 2009). It is an austral summer (DJF) temperature reconstruction based on reflection spectrometry data from a Laguna Aculeo sediment core. It has a robust correlation with modern instrumental records as shown in figure 8 below. The variable names for this site are:
As shown in the inventory, there are a total of 647 proxies and 392 (61%) are “Wood” or tree ring proxies. As explained the last post, tree ring proxy series are detrended, so they are unreliable long-term climate indicators (Briffa et al., 1998b). This is the “segment length curse” of tree ring proxies (Cook et al., 1995). The Pages 2k team uses “Regional Curve Standardization” to try and regain some long-term signal from the tree rings, but since tree populations in any given area change over time this is an unreliable technique (Esper et al., 2003). For this reason, I chose to eliminate tree ring proxies from the database. You are quite free to change the program to retain them for your study if you wish.
After making the inventory, Pages2k.r downloads the NOAA NCDC version of the Vinther data that is used by Pages2k and places them in the subdirectory “NCDC.” This version is higher resolution (up to 1-year) than Vinther’ original proxies from iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk. The original proxies, from the Denmark site, are pre-downloaded and in the “Proxies” subdirectory of root_dir.
Inspecting the Pages 2k contents
This is the first program I wrote in this study, so a lot of it is just inventorying the data and counting the number of proxies that fit certain criteria I thought were important when I started the study. This inspection process uses some repetitious code that could be shortened, but I left it in to help the reader do their own searches and inventories.
After downloading the NCDC proxies, the next statement is “names(D)” which lists all 647 proxies to the console.
As described above, to investigate the contents of any of them, set the “site” variable to the proxy name and place a “$” after “D[[site]]” and the variable name. “D[[site]]$pub” returns (among other publication details) for site =”Arc-Agassiz.Vinther.2008″:
D[[site]]$pub [[1]] [[1]]$author [1] "Vinther, B. M.;Clausen, H. B.;Fisher, D. A.;Koerner, R. M.;Johnsen, S. J.;Andersen, K. K.; Dahl-Jensen, D.;Rasmussen, S. O.;Steffensen, J. P.; Svensson, A. M." [[1]]$doi [1] "10.1029/2007JD009143" [[1]]$journal [1] "Journal of Geophysical Research" [[1]]$pubYear [1] "2008" [[1]]$title [1] "Synchronizing ice cores from the Renland and Agassiz ice caps to the Greenland ice core chronology"
Which is very useful information, D[[site]]$geo$longitude and D[[site]]$geo$latitude return:
These store part of the paths to variables in the critical paleodata, measurementTable, and geo sections of “D” to save typing. This is how mt$d18O$”useInGlobalTemperatureAnalysis”, which is shorthand for:
The value “TRUE” means the proxy was used in the Pages 2k reconstruction. If the correlation statistics of the proxy to the modern instrumental era are in the database somewhere, I did not find them.
Functions
Two functions used in this program are listed next. The first is a function to make sure that the site names are safe to use as variable names in R (it eliminates certain dangerous characters from the name like “/” and “\\”). The second is a function to plot proxies called “plot_proxy.” Just press ctrl-enter to execute the functions, they will be syntax checked and stored for future use.
Initial processing
Following plot_proxy, a list called “rows” is created to store critical variables for each proxy. The data we loaded from Pages 2k, is from the list variable “D.” After declaring rows, Pages2k.r uses it in a “for” loop (“for (site in names(D))”) that loops through all the proxies in D and picks up key data items, like archiveType, latitude, longitude, and elevation. It also excludes all tree ring (archiveType = “wood”) proxies. It uses this data to build a list (“rows”) with the selected variables and then binds rows into a single data frame called proxy_df. A data frame is a special type of list where all components (aka columns) are vectors of the same length. At the end of the code block the data frame made from rows (proxy_df) is written out as a csv file to csv_dir in a file named “Proxies_without_tree_rings.csv”.
Examining “Proxies_without_tree_rings.csv” we see that it contains information on 255 proxies, including their latitude, longitude, elevation, type of proxy, region, and the title of the original paper describing the proxy.
The next code block also excludes tree rings but then searches the proxy “measurementTables” for the different types of measurements and counts them. The dominant type is d18O (113) and second is temperature (108).
This is followed by a code block that goes through the list of proxies again and rejects those that are not used in the Pages 2k reconstruction or have no proxy values in the measurement table (“mt”). If multiple variables are flagged as TRUE, it takes d18O or temperature. These checks do not change the number of proxies retained, the total is still 255, which is useful information. All this rejection logic can be changed; these choices are strictly opinion.
Uncertainty
The program does check for researcher supplied uncertainty. One of the proxies (“Afr-ColdAirCave.Sundqvist.2013”) had author supplied uncertainty, so this logic was included to capture others, but of the proxies I examined there was only one.
Year
Most of the proxies had time supplied as “bp” or years before 1950. If the proxy has time in these units Pages2k converts it to calendar_years.
Geographic information
The code block picks up latitude, longitude, elevation, region, and other details for each proxy.
Inventory
The next code block shows the number of remining proxies (“length(proxy_list)” which should still be 255, lists the first ten, and shows the number of rejected sites (0, except for the tree ring proxies). Then an inventory is built and written out to the csv_dir as “Proxy_list_Inventory”. The inventory is interesting, it shows that coral d18O, marine sediment, and lake sediment proxies make up more than half of the proxies that passed our filters.
Plots
The next code block makes plots of the surviving 255 proxies. Figure 7 is an example plot from plot_proxy. It is a rather distinctive plot of a South American temperature proxy.
Figure 7. This proxy is from central Chile, in the Southern Hemisphere. It is a summer (DJF) temperature proxy aggregate from reflection spectrometry. It has a robust correlation to summer temperatures in the instrumental record from 1901-2000 (von_Gunten et al., 2009).
In figure 7 it is interesting that the initial large temperature drop (at least in Chile) occurs just a few decades after the Wolf Solar Grand Minimum (SGM). Usoskin’s Little Ice Age Solar Grand Minima are located on the post (Usoskin et al., 2016). According to Usoskin, the Spörer SGM is the longest in over 8,000 years.
Computing ΔT from the proxies
After making the proxy plots and examining them, we begin the process of converting them into temperature anomalies. The first step is to build a data frame, called proxy_summary. It contains some critical variables like the site name, minimum year and maximum year, and a flag to the reference period of 1870-1900. While working with the proxies, I found some errors, these are fixed in the code block headed with the comment “Fix erroneous records, make changes.” After fixing the errors, the data frame final_proxies is created, it has a length of 128 proxies. All the proxies in final_proxies have valid units, the minimum year is 1880 or earlier and the maximum year is after 1900, and it has at least 4 values between 1870 and 1900.
In step 2 Pages 2k sets up to extract the NOAA GlobalTemp temperature record from the grid cell closest to the proxies with the functions nearest_grid and get_noaa_annual. This is used to calibrate the proxies in the calibration period 1870 to 2020. The NOAA GlobalTemp 5°x5° latitude/longitude grid cells are very large (1.2 million square kilometers at the equator) so over complex terrain or in ocean regions with strong ocean currents, surface temperature can vary a lot across one grid cell.
Next, in step 3 we enter a loop through all the final proxies. In the loop, we extract the NOAA GlobalTemp record for the site’s location and create a 5-point smoothed version of the proxy. Next the logic separates those proxies already in temperature units from those that are not. If the proxy is in temperature units, it was converted by the original researcher. In that case, we simply move it to an anomaly from the 1870 to 1900 mean and compare it to the NOAA GlobalTemp record and use it as is. The logic in doing this is that if the original researcher had a preferred way to convert his proxy to temperature, he is closest to the data and has already chosen the best methodology and temperature series to use. Our method is a crude simple regression against a 5×5 degree GlobalTemp grid. Mixing our crude method with the original researcher’s conversions is not ideal, although it is worth noting that the R2 values for researcher temperature vs NOAA GlobalTemp (R2 mean 0.19) are no better than for the original proxy and NOAA GlobalTemp (R2 mean of 0.15).
For the non-temperature proxies, the comparison to GlobalTemp is done with five-point smoothed data. After doing the comparison, we make a comparison plot, like in figure 8.
Figure 8. The instrumental era calibration plot for von Gunten’s spectral reflectance proxy in central Chile.
If the proxy is not already a temperature, but is in d18O or some other units, it is converted in Step 4. This is done using a linear transform after 5-point smoothing the data. Note the smoothing technique used here does not take the sample increment (or spacing) into account, so it varies temporally with sample spacing. The d18O to NOAA GlobalTemp calibration plot is shown for the Renland core in figure 9.
Figure 9. The instrumental era calibration plot for the Renland ice core, it has unusually good statistics.
Once the calibration is done, we move on to step 5 where the “predict” function uses the instrumental era fit statistics to compute temperature along the entire proxy record. Then the temperature is moved to an anomaly from the 1870-1900 mean. The calibration statistics are stored in final_proxies, and Pages 2k plots the resulting temperature record.
After all the sites are processed, another inventory is created and written out as “final_proxies_Inventory.csv.” This inventory reveals that coral d18O is the most common proxy (40) and glacier ice d18O is the second most common (31), followed by marine and lake sediment cores already converted to temperature (21).
Then Pages 2k counts the proxies by measurement type and reveals that 77 of the proxies are d18O measurements and 31 have been converted from their original units to temperature units already. This is followed by creating a proxy_summary data frame with the basic values for all the final proxies.
Then the site-by-site calibration interval statistics in the list “site_stats” are collected into a data frame and written to “Site_Cal_stats_Summary.csv.” These are the instrumental era proxy-by-proxy calibration statistics missing from the Pages 2k documentation. You can see the overall average R2 is only 0.16 and the average p is 0.165, these are poor correlations overall and there are few good correlations in the whole batch, the maximum R2 is only 0.68.
I should mention that a low calibration R² does not necessarily imply that a proxy is invalid. It may indicate that the proxy responds to seasonal, oceanographic, hydrologic, or regional variables not fully captured or represented by the nearest NOAA annual-mean temperature grid cell. Many of the proxies just represent one season which is not taken into account in Pages2k.r. Under some circumstances Pages 2k takes season into account but usually treats all proxies as if they were annual. The Pages 2K reconstruction also tries to take spatial distribution of the proxies into account, not something done by this program. Pages 2k also converts each series into a Z-score before merging them. I did try converting the proxies to Z-scores, as opposed to using the actual proxy measurements, and found no significant difference. With the noted exceptions, the Pages 2k NGEO supplement describes a procedure similar to that in Pages2k.R, except they used an infilled HadCRUT4 grid, whereas I use the NOAA GlobalTemp grid. Pages 2k does not provide proxy-by-proxy R2 values, but they do provide them region-by-region.
In the tropics, summer proxies are decent predictors of the annual mean, but in the higher latitudes they are not. In the extratropics and high latitudes annual mean temperature trends correlate to winter temperature trends (Pages 2K, 2017). One other point, the correlations used in Pages2k.r are all performed with ordinary least squares (the R function “lm(temp~proxy)”) which assumes no error in the proxy measurement. This is not always the case but here it was used for simplicity and as an exploratory tool.
Finally, the basic useful statistics for each proxy are written out to “Final_Proxy_List Summary.csv”, such as the proxy type, minimum and maximum values and the beginning and ending years. Counts of each proxy type (including those proxies with multiple measurements) are written out to “Final_Variable Count.csv.” Calibration interval correlation statistics are written to “Site_Cal_stats_Summary.csv.”
A programming tip. If you don’t understand a code block, cut-and-paste it into your favorite AI program and ask it to explain what the code does. Likewise, if you want to change what the program does or add a new code block, describe what you want to do to AI and ask it to write the new code for you. Be careful writing your coding request and you will probably get working code out of the AI, they can all write R code.
A new study by Simon J. Lock (University of Bristol), published in JGR: Solid Earth, proposes that Earth’s rapid early spin after the Moon- forming impact, and its subsequent slowdown as the Moon tidally receded, strongly influenced the thickness and deformation of the planet’s first crust, potentially driving early tectonics, volcanism, and the production of more evolved (felsic) rocks.
Lock’s research describes a form of early tectonic activity driven by Earth’s changing shape, not by modern plate tectonics.
AI generated by Grok
A new study by Simon J. Lock (University of Bristol), published in JGR: Solid Earth, proposes that Earth’s rapid early spin after the Moon- forming impact, and its subsequent slowdown as the Moon tidally receded, strongly influenced the thickness and deformation of the planet’s first crust, potentially driving early tectonics, volcanism, and the production of more evolved (felsic) rocks.
Around 4.5 billion years ago, a Mars- sized body collided with the proto- Earth. This giant impact formed the Moon and left Earth spinning extremely rapidly, with a day lasting roughly 2- 5 hours (depending on the angular- momentum scenario).
The fast rotation made the planet highly oblate, flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator. In extreme high- angular- momentum cases, the equatorial radius could have been up to twice the polar radius.
The first long- lived crust crystallized from a magma ocean while Earth was still spinning this fast. Centrifugal force partially offset gravity near the equator, so primary crust would have formed thicker there than at the poles (by factors of up to ~10 in some models).
As tidal interactions transferred angular momentum, the Moon migrated outward and Earth’s spin slowed. The planet became progressively more spherical.
This shape change deformed the newly formed crust: extension (stretching) at the poles and convergence (squeezing and compression) around the equator.
In high- spin scenarios the equatorial compression rates could briefly rival those of the modern Himalayas and persist for millions to tens of millions of years.
These motions could have:
Cracked the dense initial crust, allowing surface water and atmospheric CO₂ to interact with the interior.
Driven burial of hydrated and weathered material, secondary melting, extensive volcanism, and degassing.
Produced more buoyant, granitic and felsic rocks early on (helping explain evidence for such rocks within the first ~200 million years).
Possibly contributed to early mantle heterogeneities via delamination or phase changes as internal pressures rose.
The work highlights a previously under- appreciated driver of early tectonic activity that does not require modern- style plate tectonics or subduction.
It may help explain why Earth developed a dynamic, recycling crust (and ultimately a more habitable surface environment) while Venus did not.
Direct geological tests are difficult because almost none of the Hadean crust survives, but the model is consistent with several existing constraints and opens new avenues for modeling early Earth- Moon dynamics, atmosphere evolution, and core- mantle interactions.
The Phys.org piece by Sam Jarman is a popular summary of this research (also covered by Science and available in preprint form on arXiv).
A conceptual illustration of Earth’s evolution during the early period of lunar tidal recession. Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (2026). DOI: 10.1029/2025jb033676
Lock’s research describes a form of early tectonic activity driven by Earth’s changing shape, not by modern plate tectonics.
It offers a mechanism that could have operated in the first tens of millions of years after the Moon- forming impact, well before (or independently of) the onset of sustained plate tectonics.
Key distinctions and relationships
Not plate tectonics: Modern plate tectonics involves rigid lithospheric plates moving relative to one another, with divergent boundaries (mid- ocean ridges), convergent boundaries (subduction zones), and transform faults. Lock’s process is a global, latitude- dependent deformation caused by the planet itself becoming less oblate (more spherical) as its spin slowed due to tidal interaction with the receding Moon. There is no requirement for discrete plates, seafloor spreading, or subduction in the modern sense.
Similar effects, different driver: The shape change produced polar extension (stretching, potentially analogous to rifting or spreading) and equatorial convergence and compression (squeezing, potentially analogous to collisional or compressional tectonics). In high- angular- momentum scenarios, equatorial convergence rates could briefly match or exceed those of the modern Himalayas and persist for tens of millions of years around the entire equator. Even in the canonical (lower angular- momentum) scenario, early rates could exceed those of average or slow modern subduction zones and mid- ocean ridges for several million years.
Possible precursor or facilitator:
Equatorial compression could bury hydrated surface material, enabling secondary melting and production of felsic (granite- like) magmas, something often attributed to subduction today. This provides a way to generate evolved crust early without needing modern- style subduction.
Polar extension could promote volcanism and degassing.
The resulting deformation, topography, and crustal recycling may have helped create conditions (including early continental nuclei or mantle heterogeneities via delamination) that later favored the development of plate tectonics.
Coverage and commentary note that this offers “another way to recycle material without needing subduction” and may help explain why Earth became geologically active and habitable while Venus (lacking a large moon and similar spin- down history) did not.
Timing context: The intense phase of this rotationally driven tectonics is concentrated in the first ~10- 100 million years after the Moon- forming impact (depending on the angular- momentum and tidal- evolution scenario). Debates about when true plate tectonics began typically focus on much later times (e.g., ~3.5- 3.0 Ga or later for sustained, modern- style plate tectonics, though some evidence suggests earlier episodic or proto- plate activity). Lock’s mechanism therefore operates in the Hadean, potentially as an independent or transitional process alongside other early regimes such as stagnant- lid, heat-pipe, or sagduction tectonics.
In short, the work expands the menu of processes that could have tectonically reworked Earth’s earliest crust. It does not claim to be the origin of plate tectonics, but it shows that significant, high- rate crustal deformation and recycling were possible very early, driven purely by the planet’s spin- down and shape change, helping set the geological stage for whatever tectonic regime followed.
The Moon -forming impact may have spun Earth up. As it slowed, its crust came under immense strain. NASA/JPL- Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)
Sagduction (sometimes called “drip tectonics” or vertical tectonics) is not the same as subduction.
Quick comparison
Feature
Subduction (modern plate tectonics)
Sagduction (proposed early- Earth process)
Driver
Horizontal motion of rigid lithospheric plates
Gravity (density inversion)
Motion
One plate slides sideways under another
Dense upper- crustal material sags, sinks vertically downward into weaker, lower-density crust or mantle
Geometry
Inclined Benioff zone, linear plate boundaries
Dome- and- keel, basin- and- dome structures typical of many Archean granite-greenstone terranes
Hot, weak early crust; thick piles of dense volcanic rocks (e.g., komatiites or greenstones) overlying lighter felsic material
What sagduction actually is
In the hotter Hadean- Archean Earth, dense mafic and ultramafic volcanic sequences (greenstone belts) are thought to have become gravitationally unstable and slowly sank (“sagged”) into the underlying, partially molten, lower- density tonalite– trondhjemite– granodiorite (TTG) crust. This produces the classic Archean “dome- and- keel” architecture: rising felsic domes and sinking greenstone keels.
It is a form of vertical tectonics driven purely by buoyancy contrasts, not by the sideways sliding of large rigid plates.
Relevance to Lock’s mechanism
Lock’s rotationally driven process (equatorial compression and polar extension caused by Earth’s slowing spin and changing shape) is yet another independent tectonic driver that would have operated in the earliest Hadean.
It could have coexisted with, or transitioned into, other proposed early regimes such as:
Stagnant- lid and single- lid convection
Heat- pipe volcanism
Sagduction and drip tectonics
Possibly early, intermittent, or localized subduction
In short: sagduction ≠ subduction.
Sagduction is a gravity- driven vertical process often invoked for the Archean, while Lock’s mechanism is a global, latitude- dependent deformation caused by planetary spin- down. Both are alternatives (or complements) to modern- style plate tectonics on the early Earth.
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Tectonics on Early Earth Driven by Earth’s Changing Shape During Tidal Recession of the Moon
Formation of crust on a rapidly rotating early Earth is a key section in Simon J. Lock’s 2026 paper (JGR: Solid Earth; arXiv:2609.22474), which examines how Earth’s post- Moon- forming- impact spin shaped its first long- lived crust.
After the giant impact that formed the Moon (~4.5 billion years ago), Earth spun very rapidly (day length ~2- 5 hours depending on the angular-momentum model). This made the planet highly oblate (flattened at the poles, bulging at the equator). Internal pressures were substantially lower than today, and effective surface gravity varied strongly with latitude, stronger at the poles and weaker near the equator due to centrifugal force.
The first long- lived crust formed as the post- impact magma ocean solidified. When the surface liquid fraction dropped below ~40%, crystals locked together, viscosity rose dramatically, and residual melt percolated upward and erupted, creating a compositionally distinct crust over a depleted mantle. Most prior models assumed present- day pressures and gravity; Lock shows that if the crust formed while Earth was still rapidly rotating (plausible given magma-ocean solidification timescales of ~10⁴- 10⁶ years, or up to ~10 Myr in some models), the geophysical setting was very different.
Effects on Crust Thickness and Properties
Lower average gravity and shallower pressure gradients meant a larger volume of the mantle remained partially molten when the surface reached the rheological transition. This increased the total melt available to form crust.
Melt volume and crustal thickness varied latitudinally. The depth of melting scales roughly as D∼1/g. Weaker gravity near the equator allowed greater melting depth and more melt production there.
Simple decompression- melting models (analogous to mid-ocean-ridge processes) implycitation_id intermediate_) imply crustal thickness scales approximately as .
Result: Primary (compositional) crust was thicker at the equator than at the poles. In the canonical (lower angular- momentum) model the equator- to-pole variation is modest (~15%). In high- angular- momentum scenarios the contrast can reach a factor of ~10, with equatorial crust potentially hundreds of km thick and polar crust an order of magnitude thinner.
Melt- extraction timescales were longer near the equator (lower buoyancy drive and greater extraction depth), but overall melt extraction is still expected to have been efficient. A large fraction of the early crust may also have been “asthenospheric” (mechanically weak) because of the altered pressure/temperature structure.
This latitudinally variable primary crust set the stage for the subsequent deformation driven by Earth’s slowing spin and changing shape (as the Moon tidally receded). Equatorial compression and polar extension could then recycle hydrated material, promote secondary melting, generate more felsic rocks, and help create early mantle heterogeneities, processes that may have influenced the emergence of continental crust and surface conditions favorable for life, all within the first tens of millions of years after the Moon- forming impact.
The exact magnitude depends on the poorly constrained angular momentum of the early Earth– Moon system and the relative timing of crust solidification versus tidal evolution, but the qualitative effects apply across a wide range of scenarios.
–
Few fragments of Earth’s earliest crust have survived. Lock explores a previously neglected factor, rotation, after the Moon- forming impact.
Earth was rapidly rotating (day length ~2- 5 hours), and its spin slowed significantly in the first tens of millions of years as the Moon tidally receded.
Using planetary- structure and tidal- evolution calculations, the study shows:
The initially highly oblate (flattened) Earth produced significant latitudinal variations in primary crustal thickness (thicker at the equator than at the poles, by up to a factor of ~10 in high- angular- momentum scenarios).
As Earth’s shape became more spherical, the changing figure drove extensive tectonic activity: extension in polar regions and convergence (compression) in equatorial regions. In high- angular- momentum cases, equatorial convergence rates could briefly rival those forming the modern Himalayas.
Depending on crustal rheology, these motions could have buried hydrated and weathered surface material, triggered extensive volcanism and degassing, caused phase- change- driven delamination (creating early mantle heterogeneities), and enabled hydrated secondary melting that produced more evolved (felsic) magmas, helping explain the early diversity of rock types within tens of millions of years of Earth’s formation.
Just after formation, Earth spun with a day shorter than ~5 hours and was strongly flattened (in extreme cases the equator was twice as far from the center as the poles). The first crust formed on this spinning, oblate planet and was therefore thicker at the equator.
As the Moon moved outward and Earth’s day lengthened, the planet rounded out, stretching the polar crust and squeezing the equatorial crust. This deformation shaped the early atmosphere and crust and helped create conditions suitable for the emergence of life.
The paper is open access. It expands on the preprint (arXiv:2609.22474) we discussed earlier and provides the formal peer- reviewed version of the research linking Earth’s early rapid spin, its changing shape, crustal thickness variations, and rotationally driven tectonics.
Few fragments of Earth’s earliest crust have survived, and so this formative period of our planet’s history is shrouded in mystery. To leverage the limited data available, it is important to understand all the processes that could have shaped our young planet. Here, I explore a previously neglected aspect of early-Earth dynamics: rotation. Earth after the Moon-forming impact was rapidly rotating with its rotation rate slowing significantly during the first tens of millions of years after the impact as the Moon tidally receded. Using planetary structure and tidal evolution calculations, I show that the initially distorted structure of Earth would likely have led to significant latitudinal variations in primary crustal thickness. Further, the subsequent changes in Earth’s shape in response to its slowing rotation rate could have driven extensive tectonic activity and modulated the response of the crust to other forces. There was extension of the crust in polar regions and convergence in the equatorial regions at rates potentially comparable to those forming the Himalayas today in high-angular momentum scenarios. Depending on the rheology of the earliest crust, such motions could have led to burial of hydrated and weathered surface material, extensive volcanism, and degassing of Earth’s interior. Phase changes due to increases in internal pressure could have led to delamination of parts of the crust, producing early mantle heterogeneities. Hydrated secondary melting of the crust and the production of evolved magmas could explain the emergence of a diversity of rock types within tens of millions of years of Earth’s formation.
Is Net Zero increasingly coming down to earth? Little by little, the driving force behind Government policies seems to be throttling back. The latest is that Burnham’s Labour Government is to ease Net Zero airline fuel quotas involving sustainable (or synthetic) aviation fuel (SAF).
Is Net Zero increasingly coming down to earth? Little by little, the driving force behind Government policies seems to be throttling back. The latest is that Burnham’s Labour Government is to ease Net Zero airline fuel quotas involving sustainable (or synthetic) aviation fuel (SAF). The Telegraphhas the story:
Ministers are preparing to back down on quotas for the use of synthetic fuel by airlines, after warnings about how much they could increase costs for holidaymakers.
The Government has been told the mandate, which is due to come into force on January 1st to reduce emissions from planes, would force passengers to pay an extra £25 for short-haul flights.
Under the rules, airlines would face large fines if they failed to hit targets for the use of synthetic fuel, even though it is virtually unobtainable, with just one refinery out of 600 worldwide producing it.
This comes hot on the heels of another climbdown:
It is the latest Net Zero retreat by Andy Burnham, who is keen to prioritise measures that ease the cost of living. Earlier this week it emerged that he had ordered a halt to new wind and solar power subsidies to try to reduce household energy bills.
As with so many Net Zero ‘initiatives’, just seems to come down to loading more costs onto consumers:
Some airlines have already added fare surcharges to cover the additional cost of SAF, which is two to five times more expensive than standard jet fuel.
The latest round of SAF rules, due to come into force on January 1st, would require airlines to use a new synthetic fuel known as electro-sustainable aviation fuel (e-SAF). It says they must then incorporate at least a 0.5% mix into their total fuel uptake by 2030.
Overall, airlines must use at least 10% SAF by the same year – the toughest requirement anywhere in the world.
Richard Holden, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said the move was “yet another Labour climbdown” that showed the Net Zero drive was “falling apart”.
Although manufacturers of SAF such as Synhelion are gushing in their enthusiasm for the fuel, which can be made from waste oil, cooking coil and even animal fat, the fact remains that it costs several times much as conventional jet fuel.
That presently is a function of scale, but it seems that bringing the cost down isn’t going to come anything like fast enough for the real world of politics. Unlike the original production of oil, which had time to grow with a new market, the industry of new fuels must confront an already enormous existing market which much cheaper sources of conventional fuel already supply.
Governments have tried to force the change unnaturally fast with the use of quotas and other coercive tactics, keeping prices high and meeting resistance.
This is probably the central problem for Net Zero policies for everything from heat pumps to aviation. It seems some politicians are waking up to this.
At the same time the debate appears to be shifting from the dogma of ‘offset the climate catastrophe at any cost’, to averting a widespread self-inflicted social and economic disaster.
The Telegraph reports additionally that “Burnham is also preparing to cut quotas for sales of electric vehicles (EVs)”.
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