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.
As author Joan Didion said, “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
That is, of course, Democratic control.
New York’s fracking ban leaves tens of billions of dollars in the ground while 25% of all children in New York City are born into poverty.
California has enormous oil and gas reserves but instead of self-supplying, it imports 75% of its oil, with 30% of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
As author Joan Didion said, “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
That is, of course, Democratic control.
Two years since the 2024 elections and polling is suggesting that anyone who consumes fossil fuels — all of us — is headed for trouble. This is especially true in the oil and gas industry where election year wins by liberal firebrands means fracers and drillers like me will return to working under the heel of the most senselessly irrational of all Democratic policy. That is, energy.
New York’s fracking ban leaves tens of billions of dollars in the ground while 25% of all children in New York City are born into poverty. California has enormous oil and gas reserves but instead of self-supplying, it imports 75% of its oil, with 30% of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz. At great cost, our Navy is now protecting that oil, while back home, California continues to thumb its nose at the industry while passing on some of the best paying jobs in America. It also has the highest gasoline taxes in the U.S. The result, $6.15 gas compared to Texas’s $3.75. Back in 2022, when the current Massachusetts governor was its AG, she was celebrating her role in blocking two natural gas pipelines into her state.
Four years later, she has about-faced and is demanding that Trump speed up permitting for a new natural gas pipeline. That’s to her credit, yet the fact remains that green initiatives account for one-third of Massachusetts’ utility bills. Then there’s the rest of New England, conjoined in the ideological absurdity of burning heating oil in boilers and furnaces because of an inconceivably illiterate aversion to clean burning natural gas. In Maine alone, 55% of its households are still burning oil.
It’s hard to forget the folly of Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary under Biden, telling the oil and gas industry we had enough leases. This was in defense of her boss’s illegal suspension of federal oil and gas lease auctions. Ridiculous given that oil is priced on supply and demand and shutting down leasing results in a supply squeeze. Therein lies the rub. Climate activists want to kill before they replace. Foresight is always lost to fervor. Had the Supreme Court not stepped in, drilling would have stopped as leasing is endless given the patch-like nature of assembling a drilling unit. Killing drilling was the unstated goal—the part that’s purposefully left unsaid—the knife’s edge of liberal policy.
Recall the $7.5 billion program set aside in 2021 for EV charging stations. Instead of the thousands of stations that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg promised, the total to date is 226. That kind of ineptitude is peanuts compared to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and related EPA rules. $1.7 trillion was piled onto taxpayers in programs that haven’t yet moved the needle on atmospheric CO2.
No doubt, oil and gas pollute, but depending on the timeline of sampling, so do nuclear, wind, and solar. Add in battery production, where toxicity is present from cradle to grave, and you have the stark truth. There is no form of energy that doesn’t pollute.
Oil and all its byproducts will resettle. But with a return to the past, we’ll once again have the conflagration of capital typical to Biden, Obama, Hochul, and Newsom’s policies. Democrats used to be for the people, but this subset is impoverishing its constituents in the name of climate. The hard left seems to believe the only good use for fossil fuels is to incinerate businesses, churches, and government buildings with little mind paid to the working poor, a fact worth remembering to come election day.
Researchers analyzed more than 700,000 cloud samples from multiyear observations at four oceanic sites (using DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement and ARM User Facility data). They focused on warm-rain (drizzle) formation in marine low- level clouds, stratocumulus and shallow cumulus.
ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement) User Facility is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national scientific user facility that provides long-term, continuous atmospheric observations, especially of clouds, aerosols, radiation, and related processes, to support climate and weather research.
The PNAS paper (“In- cloud motions shape warm- rain production in marine clouds”) uses multiyear ground- based observations (primarily ARM sites and BCO) of >700,000 cloud samples.
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“The Journey of Water Drops Matters in Predicting Rain: Long- term observations of marine clouds reveal how in- cloud motions shape rain” is a Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) news release (published around late October 2026) about a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers analyzed more than 700,000 cloud samples from multiyear observations at four oceanic sites (using DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement and ARM User Facility data). They focused on warm-rain (drizzle) formation in marine low- level clouds, stratocumulus and shallow cumulus.
Marine stratocumulus (extensive low clouds over oceans) readily produce drizzle, even with relatively little liquid water. Precipitation appears beneath them in >56% of cloudy columns with liquid water path (LWP) <130 g m⁻², and >84% when LWP exceeds that threshold. Barriers to precipitation onset appear weaker than often assumed.
For the same LWP, oceanic cumulus precipitate less frequently. When they do, the drops are roughly twice as large but tens to hundreds of times fewer than those under stratocumulus.
These differences align with cumulus having roughly twice as strong updrafts and lower adiabaticity than stratocumulus. The history and path of individual drops through the cloud, encountering liquid- water- rich regions (favoring collision-coalescence growth) versus drier patches (favoring evaporation), strongly shapes the number and size of drops that reach below cloud base.
Stratocumulus precipitation is broadly consistent with gravitational free- fall growth via collision -coalescence at low LWP; cumulus properties require additional dynamical processes.
Cloud- regime properties (especially small- scale in- cloud motions and structure) influence warm precipitation more than regional environmental variability.
The results support improving how models parameterize precipitation formation by more explicitly accounting for dynamical effects on drop growth histories, and they motivate further drop- tracking approaches in observations and predictions.
Lead authors and researchers associated with the work include Katia Lamer, Pavlos Kollias, and others from BNL (with collaborators).
The full paper title is “In- cloud motions shape warm- rain production in marine clouds: Evidence from multiyear observations.”
Primary sources:BNL Newsroom and related coverage on phys.org.
This map shows four observation sites that Brookhaven Lab researchers used to study marine clouds: the Barbados Cloud Observatory, Gan Island, the Eastern North Atlantic observatory and a ship route between Los Angeles and Hawaii sampled during the Marine ARM GPCI Investigation of Clouds campaign. The insets show examples of measurements of stratocumulus and cumulus properties including cloud boundaries, water content and the motion of water drops. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory
ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement) User Facility is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national scientific user facility that provides long-term, continuous atmospheric observations, especially of clouds, aerosols, radiation, and related processes, to support climate and weather research.
It has collected data for over 30 years from fixed observatories, mobile facilities, aerial platforms, and field campaigns worldwide, archiving tens of petabytes (recent figures exceed 7- 8 PB).
Key Sites Relevant to Marine Clouds
Eastern North Atlantic (ENA): Fixed ARM observatory on Graciosa Island in the Azores (Portugal). Focuses on marine stratocumulus and related low-level clouds.
Gan Island (GAN): Related to ARM deployments in the Maldives and Indian Ocean region.
Marine ARM GPCI Investigation of Clouds (MAGIC): Ship- based campaign along a route between Los Angeles and Hawaii, sampling subtropical marine clouds.
Barbados Cloud Observatory (BCO): Long- term site operated primarily by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (with partners); provides complementary trade- wind cumulus observations. Data are available through BCO and MPI channels and some shared archives; it is frequently used alongside ARM marine data.
Other major fixed ARM sites include the Southern Great Plains (SGP, Oklahoma) and North Slope of Alaska (NSA).
How to Access and Explore ARM Data
Data are free to anyone (no fees), but a free ARM user account is required for downloads and ordering. Registration is open to users from all institutions and countries.
Create an account: Go to arm.gov and set up a user profile.
Data Discovery (primary interface):
URL: Typically accessed via arm.gov/data → Data Discovery (or directly at adc.arm.gov/discovery/ in many references).
Features: Keyword and guided search, location, instrument and measurement filters, timeline views, quality reports, quick- look plots, citations (with DOIs), and ordering.
Recent enhancements (as of 2025– 2026): Integration of external data (e.g., ACTRIS, MODIS/VIIRS satellite), AI/ML- based recommendations (opt-in), epoch case illustrations (e.g., for mesoscale cellular convection at ENA), and improved search.
Data formats and tools:
Most data are in netCDF (self-describing, with metadata). Some use HDF or GRIB.
Tutorials: “Introduction to Reading and Visualizing ARM Data” (Python-focused PDF), Data Discovery video tutorial, and webinars.
Python tools: Atmospheric Community Toolkit (ACT) for downloading and analysis (e.g., act.discovery.download_arm_data).
ARM Data Workbench and Data Studio: Interactive Jupyter environments, visualization, and no- code analysis options. High-performance computing resources are also available.
Data types:
Routine instrument datastreams (near real- time, typically available within ~48 hours).
Principal investigator (PI) products and external complementary data.
Quality reports, plots, and documentation.
Usage guidelines: Acknowledge ARM in publications. Data are open and publishable upon receipt (with appropriate credit). Early access applies during some campaigns.
Getting Started Tips for Marine Cloud and Precipitation Studies
Search Data Discovery for sites like “ENA,” instruments such as cloud radar (e.g., Ka- band Doppler), lidar, microwave radiometer, or measurements related to LWP, Doppler velocity, reflectivity, or precipitation.
Look for VAPs related to cloud properties or warm- rain processes.
For the specific study’s analysis, multiyear records from the sites above (plus BCO) were key for comparing stratocumulus vs. cumulus regimes.
Complementary BCO data: Check Max Planck Institute for Meteorology resources or SAMD archives for radar and lidar products.
ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement) User Facility AI generated by Meta
Comparison of the 2026 PNAS findings (Lamer et al.) to other studies on warm- rain processes in marine clouds
The PNAS paper (“In- cloud motions shape warm- rain production in marine clouds”) uses multiyear ground- based observations (primarily ARM sites and BCO) of >700,000 cloud samples.
Its core claims are:
Marine stratocumulus produce drizzle frequently even at relatively low liquid water path (LWP): >56% of columns with LWP <130 g m⁻² and >84% above that threshold.
For the same LWP, shallow cumulus precipitate less often but, when they do, produce roughly twice as large and 10- 100 times fewer drops.
These differences align with stronger updrafts and lower adiabaticity in cumulus, implying that drop growth histories (paths through heterogeneous moisture and motion fields) matter more than bulk LWP alone.
Stratocumulus rain is broadly consistent with gravitational collision–coalescence; cumulus requires additional dynamical processes.
Models should better represent small- scale dynamics; Lagrangian particle-tracking approaches are motivated.
Satellite radars (especially CloudSat) underestimate light precipitation due to surface clutter and sampling limits.
Below is how these findings relate to prior and concurrent work.
1. Prevalence of drizzle in low-LWP stratocumulus
The high frequency of precipitation at modest LWP challenges older assumptions of strong “barriers” to onset (often tied primarily to LWP or aerosol number).
Earlier satellite and modeling studies (e.g., using CloudSat and AMSR- E) often reported lower drizzle frequencies and suggested GCMs produce warm rain too frequently or too lightly. Ground- based Doppler spectra work (including earlier analyses by some of the same authors) already indicated higher prevalence (~65% at LWP ≈100 g m⁻²) than traditional reflectivity thresholds. The PNAS multi- site, multi- year statistics strengthen and generalize that view across oceanic regimes.
Studies emphasizing effective radius (r_e) thresholds (commonly ~12- 14 µm near cloud top) for rapid coalescence onset (e.g., Rosenfeld- related work and numerical experiments) are compatible: once drops reach that size, drizzle develops quickly even at moderate LWP. The PNAS results imply the barrier is weaker in stratocumulus than often assumed, consistent with relatively high adiabaticity allowing efficient growth.
2. Stratocumulus vs. cumulus differences
The clear regime contrast (more frequent but smaller and more numerous drops under stratocumulus; rarer but larger, fewer under cumulus at fixed LWP) is a distinctive contribution.
Heuristic and bulk models (e.g., continuous- collection models for cumulus vs. steady- state autoconversion, accretion for stratocumulus) have long noted that rain sensitivity to droplet number (N_d) is stronger in weakly precipitating stratocumulus, while thicker cumulus become more controlled by liquid- water availability.
The PNAS observations provide direct statistical support for dynamical differences (updraft strength ≈2 times, lower adiabaticity in cumulus) driving divergent drop-size distributions and frequencies.
Earlier aircraft studies of mixed cumulus– stratocumulus systems (e.g., SOCEX or ASTEX- related work) documented vigorous drizzle in both but lacked the large statistical sample and systematic LWP- matched comparison across pure regimes.
3. Role of in- cloud motions, adiabaticity, and drop histories
Emphasizing drop trajectories through variable moisture and motion fields aligns with growing evidence from large- eddy simulations (LES) that incorporate Lagrangian microphysics. Turbulence, entrainment, supersaturation fluctuations, and recirculation can enhance growth beyond pure gravitational settling, especially in more heterogeneous cumulus.
Classic 1- D trajectory ideas (e.g., Bowen model with limited recirculation) and modern Lagrangian drop and particle-tracking simulations show that “lucky” parcels with high LWC and long residence times near cloud top initiate drizzle; mixing and dynamics then spread it. The PNAS call for more Lagrangian approaches in both models and observations is consistent with this literature.
Adiabaticity differences are well- established: stratocumulus tend to be closer to adiabatic; cumulus experience more entrainment dilution. The paper links this quantitatively to observed precipitation contrasts.
4. Aerosol and giant CCN influences
Many studies highlight giant, ultra- giant cloud condensation nuclei (GCCN, often sea- salt) as accelerators of drizzle initiation via rapid condensational growth to sizes that trigger coalescence. Recent observational–modeling work (e.g., ACTIVATE- related analyses) shows enhanced rainwater ratios and faster onset with higher GCCN, especially in lightly precipitating marine low clouds.
The PNAS paper does not focus on aerosols as the primary control; instead it stresses dynamical regime differences at fixed LWP.
The two views are complementary: aerosols set the initial droplet spectrum and embryo availability, while in- cloud motions and structure determine subsequent growth pathways and outcomes.
In clean marine conditions, GCCN can lower barriers further, consistent with the relatively easy onset reported for stratocumulus.
5. Satellite limitations and model implications
The critique of CloudSat under-detection of light and shallow precipitation (surface clutter in the lowest ~1 km, sampling of small- scale features) is well-supported by earlier evaluations showing miss rates of ~40% or higher for oceanic warm clouds, especially those with low tops or small optical depths.
Ground- based radar and lidar combinations resolve cloud base and light drizzle far better, which is why the PNAS frequencies are higher.
On modeling: GCM autoconversion/accretion schemes that depend mainly on bulk cloud water and N_d (with simple enhancement factors for inhomogeneity) struggle with the regime dependence and history effects highlighted here.
The results support calls for improved representation of subgrid dynamics and, longer- term, Lagrangian or trajectory- aware approaches.
Summary of alignment and novelty
Strong agreement with prior ground -based evidence of frequent low- LWP drizzle in stratocumulus, r_e thresholds for onset, adiabaticity contrasts, and the value of Lagrangian tracking.
Extends earlier work by providing large, multi- regime statistics that isolate dynamics (updrafts, structure, drop histories) as a first- order control over bulk LWP or regional environment.
Complements aerosol and GCCN studies: dynamics shape how (and how efficiently) the microphysical “stage” set by aerosols is used.
Challenges purely bulk or satellite- derived pictures that understate light precipitation frequency and the role of small- scale motions.
Overall, the paper synthesizes and strengthens the view that warm- rain outcomes in marine clouds are strongly regime- and path- dependent, pushing both observational analysis and model parameterizations beyond simple LWP–N_d relationships.
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In- cloud motions shape warm- rain production in marine clouds: Evidence from multiyear observations
Despite years of research, the processes controlling warm- rain formation remain uncertain. The authors used multiyear ground- based observations from four oceanic regions to systematically reassess precipitation properties just beneath cloud base.
Warm- rain characteristics are remarkably consistent within cloud regimes but differ substantially between stratocumulus and cumulus.
This indicates that cloud- regime properties exert a stronger influence on warm precipitation than regional environmental variability.
Stratocumulus: Precipitation is observed beneath marine stratocumulus in >56% of cloudy columns with liquid water path (LWP) <130 g m⁻², rising to >84% for LWP >130 g m⁻². Marine stratocumulus routinely supports warm-rain formation; barriers to precipitation onset appear weaker than commonly assumed.
Cumulus (same LWP): Oceanic cumulus precipitate less frequently. When they do, they produce on average two times larger and one to two orders of magnitude fewer precipitation drops.
This contrast is consistent with cumulus having roughly twice as strong updrafts and lower adiabaticity than stratocumulus, both of which affect drop growth histories.
Stratocumulus precipitation characteristics are generally consistent with growth by collision– coalescence during gravitational free fall (especially at low LWP). Cumulus properties cannot be explained without invoking additional processes.
Implications: Warm- precipitation parameterizations in models should more explicitly account for the influence of small- scale dynamical processes on precipitation growth.
The importance of drop growth histories motivates continued exploration of Lagrangian particle- tracking approaches in both models and observations.
Data come from:
Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) observatory (Azores; stratocumulus focus, ~2015- 2018)
MAGIC ship campaign (Los Angeles– Hawaii transect; stratocumulus)
Instruments included high -sensitivity Doppler radars, lidars, and microwave radiometers. Analysis focused on low -to- moderate LWP regimes (roughly 30–700 g m⁻²), with conditional sampling by cloud type based on macrophysical properties. Emphasis was placed on precipitation just below cloud base, drop size/number, updrafts, and adiabaticity.
The paper discusses limitations of satellite radar (e.g., CloudSat surface clutter and sampling issues that under-detect light precipitation in shallow clouds) and contrasts those with the advantages of ground- based observations for resolving cloud-base precipitation and microphysics.
For the full text, figures (including the site map and example radar scenes), methods, and supporting information, access the PDF via the DOI page, PubMed, or open repositories such as the one linked above.
Title:In- cloud motions shape warm- rain production in marine clouds: Evidence from multiyear observations
Journal:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
A full- text PDF is available via institutional repositories (e.g., Politecnico di Torino IRIS).
Abstract
Despite years of research, the processes controlling warm-rain formation remain uncertain. Leveraging multiple years of observations collected across four oceanic regions, we systematically reassess the properties of precipitation just beneath cloud base. The observations show that warm-rain characteristics are remarkably consistent within cloud regimes yet differ substantially between stratocumulus and cumulus, indicating that cloud-regime properties exert a stronger influence on warm precipitation than regional environmental variability. Precipitation is observed beneath marine stratocumulus in over 56% of cloudy columns with liquid water path (LWP) <130 g m−2, rising to more than 84% in columns with LWP beyond 130 g m−2. This indicates that marine stratocumulus routinely support warm-rain formation and suggests that barriers to precipitation onset in this regime are weaker than commonly assumed. For the same LWP, oceanic cumulus precipitate less frequently than stratocumulus but on average produce two times larger and one to two orders of magnitude fewer precipitation drops. This contrast is consistent with cumulus presenting two times stronger updrafts and lower adiabaticity than stratocumulus, both of which can affect drop growth histories. Whereas the precipitation characteristics of stratocumulus are generally consistent with growth by collision–coalescence during gravitational free fall in low LWP clouds, those of cumulus cannot be explained without invoking additional processes. Together, these findings suggest that warm-precipitation parameterizations should more explicitly account for the influence of small-scale dynamical processes on precipitation growth. The apparent importance of drop growth histories further motivates continued exploration of Lagrangian particle-tracking approaches in both models and observations.
The failed Thermoselect waste treatment plant in Karlsruhe’s Rheinhafen is being demolished after causing roughly 400 million euros in losses; demolition has been underway since late July 2026 and is scheduled to finish by May 2027.
A family in the Pinneberg district (near Hamburg) had their electricity contract terminated by the green provider Grüüün after installing a heat pump and buying an electric car, which pushed their annual consumption above the tariff’s limit.
After 26 years of EEG- based solar subsidies in Germany, the industry faces a potential crisis as fixed long- term feed- in tariffs for new small systems are set to end.
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The failed Thermoselect waste treatment plant in Karlsruhe’s Rheinhafen is being demolished after causing roughly 400 million euros in losses; demolition has been underway since late July 2026 and is scheduled to finish by May 2027.
Thermoselect was a high- temperature gasification technology intended as an environmentally advanced alternative to conventional waste incineration. It aimed to process household and commercial waste (planned capacity around 225,000- 250,000 tonnes per year), generate gas, electricity, heat and leave a usable granulate residue.
The plant was built in the late 1990s (construction cost alone about 144 million euros) by Badenwerk (later absorbed into EnBW) and entered operation in 1999.
It never worked reliably.
Persistent technical problems (including equipment failures, leaks, and inability to consistently meet emissions targets), underperformance relative to design capacity, and declining waste volumes made it uneconomic.
EnBW shut it down in 2004 after total project losses of around 400 million euros (some contemporary estimates were slightly higher). The facility then stood idle for more than 20 years as an industrial ruin and “lost place”.
Demolition (Rückbau) began at the end of July 2026 with internal strip- out work, followed by heavy machinery removing the distinctive, red- roofed structure.
As of late October 2026 (SWR reporting), significant parts of the building had already been taken down. The process is expected to remove more than 50,000 tonnes of concrete and 5,000- 6,000 tonnes of steel, including the high-temperature reactors and foundations, with completion targeted for May 2027.
Demolition costs are estimated in the low single- digit millions of euros. The cleared site is planned as a preparation, storage and logistics area supporting further development of the adjacent Rheinhafen- Dampfkraftwerk (RDK) site, including a potential hydrogen- capable gas power plant (RDK9).
This matches the headline details and the cited SWR coverage from 27 October 2026 (with earlier July 2026 reporting on the start of works).
The plant is a well- documented case of a 1990s “prestige” waste- to- energy project that became a major financial and technical failure for EnBW, Badenwerk.
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A family in the Pinneberg district (near Hamburg) had their electricity contract terminated by the green provider Grüüün after installing a heat pump and buying an electric car, which pushed their annual consumption above the tariff’s limit.
What happened
The six-person household switched to a heat pump (replacing gas heating) and acquired an EV, causing their yearly electricity use to rise to roughly 23,000 kWh.
Their Grüüün contract capped consumption at 20,000 kWh per year. Exceeding this by about 15% triggered an extraordinary termination right in the contract terms.
The provider gave only six days’ notice in October 2026.
The family quickly found a new supplier offering a discounted heat- pump tariff and avoided falling into the more expensive basic supply (Grundversorgung).
Context and wider issue
Many electricity tariffs (especially cheaper or green ones from smaller providers) include hidden or explicit annual consumption ceilings.
Crossing the limit can allow the supplier to terminate the contract.
Limits vary widely:
Grüüün: 20,000 kWh in this case.
Some larger providers (e.g., Vattenfall or local utilities) set higher thresholds.
Others (such as certain EnBW commercial tariffs) can be as low as 10,000 kWh.
The case illustrates a practical side- effect of household electrification (heat pumps and EVs): higher consumption can clash with older or restrictive contract clauses even when customers are trying to act in line with energy-transition goals.
Sources align with the cited reporting: Hamburger Abendblatt (24 October 2026) first covered the family’s experience; Chip followed on 27–28 October 2026.
After 26 years of EEG- based solar subsidies in Germany, the industry faces a potential crisis as fixed long- term feed- in tariffs for new small systems are set to end.
Background
Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), introduced in 2000, guaranteed fixed feed- in tariffs for solar (and other renewables) for 20 years.
This drove rapid PV expansion.
By late 2026, transmission system operators projected EEG financing needs of about €17.52 billion for 2027, with roughly €9.6 billion attributable to photovoltaics (covered via the federal budget taxpayer funds rather than the earlier EEG surcharge on consumers).
Many older plants (especially those commissioned in 2006) lose their fixed 20-year EEG payments at the end of 2026.
They then receive only a market- value- based residual payment (Jahresmarktwert Solar minus a marketing deduction, which rises notably for 2027), available until at least 2032 under current rules.
Planned changes from 2027 (EEG reform draft)
The government draft (still under parliamentary discussion as of early November 2026, with a possible vote in mid- November) aims to phase out the classic fixed feed- in tariff for new installations:
No more 20- year fixed tariffs for most new systems.
Small systems get a limited transitional payment (typically up to 36 months, at a reduced rate) before mandatory direct marketing (selling on the market via a marketer).
Eligibility for the transition shrinks over time (e.g., higher kW thresholds in 2027, lower later; eventually none for the smallest systems).
Additional elements discussed include feed- in power limits (e.g., ~50% of capacity for some rooftop systems) to encourage storage and self-consumption, and a shift toward contracts for difference or market- oriented support for larger projects.
Systems commissioned by 31 December 2026 are generally grandfathered under the existing 20- year fixed tariff rules.
Industry reaction and risks
The solar industry (including the Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft) has warned of a sharp drop in demand for new small rooftop systems, tens of thousands of potential job losses in installation and related trades, and setbacks to expansion targets. Recent insolvencies in the sector are cited as early signs of strain.
Critics argue the sector remains heavily dependent on guaranteed revenues despite decades of support and falling technology costs.
Supporters of the reform emphasize cost control, market integration, and that many small systems are already viable via self- consumption.
The reform is not yet final law (parliamentary process and EU state-aid approval are still pending), so details could shift.
Current 2026 feed- in rates for new building- mounted systems (e.g., ~7.70 ct/kWh for partial feed- in up to 10 kW in the second half of the year) remain available for installations completed this year.
Issues & Insights (I&I) describes a new study which claimed that human burning of fossil fuels may have prevented an ice age, and suggests that, if it’s true, then modern warming should be celebrated. This perspective makes sense considering the dangers of glacial periods, and because human life struggled in past cold periods like the Little Ice Age. Meanwhile, amid the past century of modest warming, human life has flourished.
Issues & Insights (I&I) describes a new study which claimed that human burning of fossil fuels may have prevented an ice age, and suggests that, if it’s true, then modern warming should be celebrated. This perspective makes sense considering the dangers of glacial periods, and because human life struggled in past cold periods like the Little Ice Age. Meanwhile, amid the past century of modest warming, human life has flourished.
The study was published in Science, under the title “Late Holocene reexpansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet.” It directly asked the question of whether “anthropogenic” or human-caused global warming prevented a new glacial cycle which would have thrust the planet into tens of thousands of years of cold. The researchers focused on the extent of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, noting that it began to grow again about 2,000 years ago, with suggests that a cooling period was setting in. After the 1960s, the trend reversed, which the Editor’s Summary says is “evidence that humans caused the termination of the next glaciation.”
I&I points out that long term geologic history “shows that ice ages are a recurring phenomenon that last far longer than “interglacial” periods like the one we are in right now (80,000 years vs. 10,000 years, roughly). And global temperatures during previous interglacial periods were far higher than today’s “hottest year on record.”
The chart they reference is reposted below.
I&I goes on to point out that scientists are very aware that another ice age would lead to the shrinkage of land area that could be used for crops and could lead to mass starvation.
They’re spot on in that assessment, and it doesn’t even take a full, thousands-of-years-long ice age to do so.
As discussed in a Climate Realism post from last year, “Human extinction is a baseless climate scare, Slate,” the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1300 to the 1850s, saw widespread disease and famine. This was the time of the bubonic plague in Europe. Across the Atlantic, shortly before Europeans showed up in Mesoamerica, cold weather and drought decimated the Aztecs’ maize crops and led to famine. Cold weather led to multiple crop failures across Ireland in 1740, for example, killing almost a million people by starvation. Then, because of short growing seasons and cold weather which potatoes tolerate better than other staple crops, the Irish became very dependent on them. When potato blight struck in 1845, it led to another severe famine, known today as the Great Famine or Potato Famine.
Granted, technology was very limited in the Little Ice Age, humanity has come a long way with regards to agricultural techniques and equipment, as well as things like greenhouses and artificial lighting that were not available before. It’s reasonable to expect that, if we were to enter another ice age, humans would adapt, just as we adapt to other bad weather conditions.
Still, history shows that cooling isn’t good for crop production. Warming, more atmospheric carbon dioxide for plant food, and recent gains in precipitation are, though, as demonstrated alongside technological innovation. Staple crops such as cereals (rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize) have seen an increase in yield of over 52 percent since just 1990, and a 60 percent increase in overall production. The most recent all-time production and yield record occurred in 2023, according to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization data, which goes to 2024. (See figure below)
While I&I did not explicitly point to these data, they ask a very good question, assuming that human emissions of carbon dioxide are primarily responsible for averting the ice age: “Shouldn’t this be cause for celebration? And shouldn’t we be encouraging everyone to keep burning as much fossil fuel as possible for as long as possible?”
The mainstream media is not interested in honestly reporting on good news, it must all be spun into alarmism. If human activity was causing cooling, that would also be called catastrophic, although in that case they might be more correct.
Regardless of whether human use of oil, gas, and coal are primarily responsible for modern warming, there is no doubt that it is better than what appears to be the alternative, plunging into thousands of years of global cold.
New research from the University of Wollongong (UOW), published in Nature on November 4, 2026, links the Great Unconformity, a major global gap in Earth’s rock record, to the long- term rise and fall of continents driven by mantle convection.
Mantle convection is the slow, continuous circulation of solid (but ductile) rock in Earth’s mantle, driven primarily by heat from the core and radioactive decay. Hotter, less- dense material rises while cooler, denser material sinks, creating large- scale convective currents that operate over hundreds of millions of years.
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New research from the University of Wollongong (UOW), published in Nature on November 4, 2026, links the Great Unconformity, a major global gap in Earth’s rock record, to the long- term rise and fall of continents driven by mantle convection.
The Great Unconformity is a widespread erosional surface where Cambrian sedimentary rocks (roughly 540 million years old) sit directly on much older crystalline basement rocks (often more than a billion years old).
The missing interval ranges from about 200 million years to well over a billion years depending on location. A striking example is in the Grand Canyon (part of the ancient Laurentia continent, modern North America), where roughly 1.2 billion years of record is absent; similar features occur in Baltica (northern Europe), North China, and elsewhere.
Their models show that during the Neoproterozoic (roughly 1 billion to 540 million years ago), currents caused prolonged uplift of the cores of Laurentia, Baltica, and North China. This elevated the land, promoting extensive erosion that stripped away intervening rock layers.
A subsequent long period of subsidence during the Phanerozoic (the last ~540 million years) allowed seas to flood the worn surfaces and deposit younger sediments, preserving the unconformity.
The modeled vertical motions align with the regions where the Great Unconformity is best preserved and documented, and they are consistent with patterns of preserved sediment volume on continents.
The authors describe this sequence of long uplift followed by long sinking as an “ideal recipe” for both removing rock and preserving the resulting surface.
They note that earlier explanations (such as Snowball Earth glacial erosion, rifting, plumes, or sea- level fall) had been proposed but were less thoroughly tested against actual Earth behavior over deep time.
The paper is titled “The deep Earth origin of the Great Unconformity” (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11156-5). The findings also have potential implications for understanding environmental conditions around the Cambrian explosion of animal life, as landscape changes can influence seawater chemistry and habitats.
Regions for which a mantle flow model predicts a dynamic topography history conducive (orange) or nonconducive (gray) to Great Unconformity formation and preservation. Laurentia (‘LAU’), Baltica (‘BAL’), and North China (‘NCH’) are three regions where the Great Unconformity is well documented. Credit: associate professor Nicolas Flament and Santosh Dhungana
Mantle convection is the slow, continuous circulation of solid (but ductile) rock in Earth’s mantle, driven primarily by heat from the core and radioactive decay. Hotter, less- dense material rises while cooler, denser material sinks, creating large- scale convective currents that operate over hundreds of millions of years.
Role in the Great Unconformity
In the University of Wollongong study published in Nature (2026), these currents generate long- wavelength dynamic topography, gentle, continent-scale vertical motions of the Earth’s surface (typically hundreds of meters over tens to hundreds of millions of years).
Specifically:
During the Neoproterozoic (roughly 1 billion to 540 million years ago), mantle flow beneath the ancient cores of Laurentia (North America), Baltica (northern Europe), and North China produced prolonged uplift. This raised large areas of continental crust, exposing them to sustained erosion. Over hundreds of millions of years, erosion stripped away thick sequences of rock, creating the major gaps in the geological record.
This was followed by a long period of subsidence during the Phanerozoic (the last ~540 million years). As the continents slowly sank, seawater flooded the eroded surfaces and deposited younger Cambrian and later sediments directly on top of the much older crystalline basement. This process both preserved the eroded surface and produced the classic Great Unconformity observed today (most clearly in places like the Grand Canyon).
The models show that a single extended phase of uplift followed by extended subsidence is an especially effective way to remove large thicknesses of rock and protect the resulting erosion surface under later sediments. The predicted locations and timing of these vertical motions match the regions where the Great Unconformity is best preserved and documented.
In short, mantle convection does not cause dramatic, short- term upheavals like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Instead, it acts as a slow, deep- Earth “elevator” that raises and lowers entire continents, controlling long- term patterns of erosion and sedimentation that shape the incompleteness of Earth’s rock record.
The deep Earth origin of the Great Unconformity
The Great Unconformity is a globally extensive erosive surface that records a major hiatus (typically ≥200 million years) in the rock record. It immediately precedes the Cambrian explosion of animal life and has been linked to climatic shifts and environmental transitions. Previous explanations have included Snowball Earth glacial erosion, rifting and plume activity, sea-level fall, and mantle-driven dynamic topography, but the dynamics of these processes had not been rigorously tested against global data.
Using a series of palaeogeographically constrained mantle convection models spanning the past 1 billion years, the authors show that continental-scale uplift and subsidence caused by long-wavelength dynamic topography from mantle convection drove both the formation and the preservation of the Great Unconformity.
Key model results:
Prolonged continental- scale Neoproterozoic uplift followed by long- term Phanerozoic subsidence for Laurentia, Baltica, and North China.
This vertical -motion sequence is ideal for generating large- scale erosion and then protecting the resulting surface under younger sediments.
The predicted prolonged uplift during Cryogenian times would have enhanced glacial erosion.
Laurentia’s large area and relatively limited marginal deformation explain why the unconformity is best preserved and documented there.
Modelled cycles of dynamic topography broadly match observed variations in preserved sediment volume on continents.
The work positions the Great Unconformity as a first- order surface expression of deep-Earth processes and opens new avenues for understanding the environmental conditions surrounding the Cambrian diversification of animals.
The authors ran six mantle- flow models (M1- M6) driven by tectonic reconstructions. Model M1 was preferred because its predicted basal mantle structures best match modern large low- shear- velocity provinces (LLSVPs) and the locations of reconstructed volcanic provinces.
Dynamic topography was calculated from buoyancy and viscosity variations deeper than 350 km, producing smooth, continental-s cale patterns. The models show:
Around 640 Ma: positive dynamic topography (uplift) under Laurentia, Baltica, North China and several other continents.
By 440 Ma: a reorganization into more widespread negative dynamic topography (subsidence) beneath most continents, driven by changes in plate motions and subduction.
This prolonged uplift- then- subsidence history matches the geologic record of extensive Precambrian erosion followed by Cambrian sedimentation that defines the Great Unconformity.
The paper includes figures showing dynamic topography maps, mantle temperature anomalies, cross-sections through Laurentia, and comparisons with sediment- volume data.
Top: The Great Unconformity was formed by continental-scale erosion of ancient crystalline basement during Neoproterozoic times, followed by continental-scale sedimentation during early Phanerozoic times. Bottom: Mantle flow models predict Neoproterozoic dynamic uplift followed by Phanerozoic dynamic subsidence for Laurentia (‘LAU’), Baltica (‘BAL’) and North China (‘NCH’). Credit: associate professor Nicolas Flament and Santosh Dhungana
The Great Unconformity marks a globally extensive erosive surface linked to climatic shifts1 and environmental transitions2 that preceded the Cambrian explosion of life. The processes proposed to explain the formation of the Great Unconformity include glacial erosion during the Snowball Earth1,3,4, rifting and plume activity5,6,7, sea-level fall8 and mantle-driven dynamic topography6,9,10,11. However, the dynamics of these processes have not been tested. Here we show that continental-scale uplift and subsidence associated with long-wavelength dynamic topography12 due to mantle convection drove the formation and preservation of the Great Unconformity. Our models predict prolonged continental-scale Neoproterozoic uplift and long-term Phanerozoic subsidence for Laurentia, Baltica and North China. This vertical motion scenario is ideal for the formation and preservation of the Great Unconformity, which is a first-order surface expression of deep Earth processes. The predicted prolonged continental uplift throughout Cryogenian times would have resulted in marked erosion due to the action of glaciers13. The large area of Laurentia and limited deformation at its margins explain why the Great Unconformity is best preserved and documented there. Our models predict cycles of dynamic topography that are broadly reflected in preserved sediment volume across continents1,14, and open new avenues for understanding the environments of Cambrian animal diversification.
Scientists have created the first “anti- spin ice” using colloidal particles that attract each other, inverting the usual ice rule so the system maximizes (rather than minimizes) local topological charges.
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Scientists have created the first “anti- spin ice” using colloidal particles that attract each other, inverting the usual ice rule so the system maximizes (rather than minimizes) local topological charges.
This comes from a Nature Communications paper (published September 2026) by Renaud Baillou, Matthew Terkel, Cristiano Nisoli, and Pietro Tierno (University of Barcelona and Los Alamos National Laboratory).
A Phys.org feature summarizing it appeared on November 1, 2026, under the exact headline: Breaking the ice: Scientists use attracting particles to form an anti-spin ice.
Background: ordinary spin ices and the ice rule
Artificial spin ices (and colloidal particle ices) mimic the geometric frustration of water ice.
In water ice, each oxygen has two hydrogens close and two farther away (the “ice rule”). Analogous systems, arrays of nanomagnets or colloidal particles in lattice traps, follow a similar local rule that minimizes topological charge at each vertex (junction).
Because many arrangements satisfy the rule equally well, the systems often remain disordered or show residual entropy. Colloidal versions typically use repulsive paramagnetic particles confined in double- well grooves; repulsion keeps charges as balanced and small as possible.
The anti- spin ice approach
The team inverted the interactions to attractive and isotropic. They used ~2.8 µm paramagnetic polystyrene colloids (with iron-oxide grains) in lithographic elliptical wells, one particle per well.
A fast in- plane rotating magnetic field (typically 1- 50 Hz) induces dipoles that average to net attraction in every direction: head- to- tail attraction is stronger than side- by- side repulsion, yielding isotropic attraction whose strength is tuned by field amplitude.
Under attraction the particles crowd toward some vertices and away from others, so the system maximizes topological charge (e.g., all particles near a vertex or all far away) instead of minimizing it. This breaks the conventional ice rule.
Key results
Bipartite lattices (square, honeycomb): Simulations and experiments show spontaneous symmetry breaking into a staggered “charge crystal”. High positive and high negative charges alternate in a checkerboard-like pattern (a single ordered ground state). This differs from the repulsive case, where the honeycomb lattice is highly degenerate.
Non- bipartite pentaheptite lattice (network of five- and seven- sided polygons): Charge crystallization is frustrated. Even at the strongest attraction, roughly one in four vertices remains low- charge. Odd- sided loops prevent perfect alternation of maximal charges, producing a new form of topological-charge frustration and a degenerate manifold of near- ground states. Experiments on a pentaheptite lattice of ~205 particles matched the simulations.
The work shows that frustration can arise from the inability to maximize charges globally when lattice topology forbids it, not only from the inability to minimize them. Because the interaction sign is controlled by the magnetic-field orientation (a conical field can switch between attraction and repulsion around the “magic angle”~54.7°), the same platform can be programmed to act as either conventional colloidal ice or anti- spin ice. The authors suggest this concept could extend to nanomagnetic, superconducting, or metamaterial artificial-ice systems.
In short, by flipping repulsion to attraction the researchers reversed the organizing principle of spin ice and uncovered both ordered charge crystallization and a novel kind of frustration.
A pentaheptite lattice of lithographic double wells each filled with one paramagnetic colloid. The particles are subjected to an in-plane rotating magnetic field and attract each other at any vertex of the lattice. Credit: Renaud Baillou and Matt Terkel.
Emergent charge crystallization and frustration in a particle anti-spin ice
Abstract (key points)
Artificial spin ices are versatile platforms for engineering exotic states of matter. They are typically governed by the ice rule, which enforces minimization of local topological charge and often produces degeneracy and constrained disorder.
This work reports the first realization of an “anti- spin ice”: a system in which the ice rule is inverted. The system seeks to maximize (rather than minimize) spin- ice charges.
Method: Fast- rotating in- plane magnetic fields generate isotropic attraction between colloidal particles, reversing the usual repulsive interactions used in colloidal spin ices.
Lattices studied: Bipartite square and honeycomb lattices and non- bipartite pentaheptite geometries (experiments and simulations).
Main findings: Rules for order and disorder in the anti- spin ice are established. On the pentaheptite lattice, a new form of frustration appears, topological charge frustration, arising from networks of unequal, odd- sided polygons that suppress charge crystallization even at high interaction strengths.
Core idea and results
In conventional colloidal particle ice, repulsive paramagnetic colloids in double- well traps follow the ice rule (balanced topological charge at vertices).
Here, a rapidly rotating in- plane magnetic field averages the dipolar interactions into net isotropic attraction. Particles therefore crowd toward some vertices and away from others, maximizing local charges.
Bipartite lattices (square, honeycomb): Spontaneous symmetry breaking produces a staggered “charge crystal” in which high positive and high negative charges alternate. A single ordered ground state emerges in both geometries (in contrast to the highly degenerate honeycomb case under repulsion).
Pentaheptite lattice (5- and 7- sided polygons): Perfect staggered crystallization is topologically impossible. Roughly one- quarter of the vertices remain low- charge even at the strongest attractions tested, producing a degenerate manifold of near-ground states. This is a distinct form of frustration driven by the inability to maximize charge globally.
The interaction sign can be tuned continuously (e.g., via a conical field around the “magic angle” ≈ 54.7°), so the same platform can switch between conventional ice and anti-spin ice behavior.
The authors note that the concept could extend to other artificial- ice platforms (nanomagnetic, superconducting, metamaterial, etc.).
The full paper (including figures, methods, and supplementary videos of particle collapse and lattice dynamics) is freely available at the link you provided. An earlier arXiv version is also available (arXiv:2603.29389).
Paper:Emergent charge crystallization and frustration in a particle anti-spin ice
Kīlauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and the youngest on the Island of Hawaiʻi. It is in the shield- building stage of Hawaiian volcanism.
Activity is predominantly effusive (fluid Hawaiian- style lava flows and fountains), with occasional explosive events.
This paper presents the highest- resolution seismic images yet of the shallow magma storage system beneath Kīlauea’s summit.
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“Mapping Kīlauea’s Magma Reservoirs” is a Research Spotlight by science writer Matthew R. Francis, published in Eos on 3 November 2026 (doi: 10.1029/2026EO260347).
It summarizes a high- resolution seismic tomography study of magma storage beneath the summit of Kīlauea volcano in Hawai‘i.
Researchers (Lin et al.) deployed a dense array of 1,815 small (nodal) seismometers in a roughly 12 km × 12 km mesh at Kīlauea’s summit.
They combined recordings of natural earthquakes with controlled seismic signals from a large vibroseis truck (“T-Rex”) that generates artificial vibrations. This hybrid passive and active- source approach produced millions of P- and S- wave arrivals.
Joint inversion of the travel- time data yielded 3- D models of P- wave velocity (Vp), S- wave velocity (Vs), and Vp/Vs ratio in the upper ~4 km (relative to sea level), on a 500 m grid. Resolution tests showed recovery of sub- kilometer to kilometer- scale structure.
The models clearly image two principal magma storage regions, each roughly 2 km across:
One beneath Halemaʻumaʻu crater (in the main caldera).
One beneath the south caldera.
Both appear as localized zones of reduced Vs (and moderately reduced Vp) with elevated Vp/Vs at depths of about 1- 3 km below sea level.
These anomalies are laterally distinct near the surface but appear to merge into a broader low- velocity zone at greater depth. Higher- velocity rock surrounding them is interpreted as stronger intrusive complexes that help confine the magma.
The seismic anomalies spatially match independent geodetic models of deformation sources, supporting the magma- reservoir interpretation.
Despite decades of monitoring, previous seismic images of Kīlauea’s summit plumbing lacked the resolution needed to sharply delineate individual reservoirs because of sparse sensor coverage.
The new hybrid dense- array approach overcomes that limitation and provides an improved framework for understanding magma storage and transport. The authors note that the methodology has already proved useful in other Kīlauea studies and could be applied at other active volcanoes.
The Eos article is a concise, accessible summary rather than the full technical paper; the original research contains the detailed models, resolution tests, and comparisons with geodetic data.
Kīlauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and the youngest on the Island of Hawaiʻi. It is in the shield- building stage of Hawaiian volcanism.
Written records begin around 1823 (after missionary William Ellis visited the summit), though oral histories and geologic evidence extend much further back.
Activity is predominantly effusive (fluid Hawaiian- style lava flows and fountains), with occasional explosive events.
Geologic records show frequent summit and rift- zone eruptions over millennia. Explosive phases occurred in the past, including a major event around 1790 (Keanakākoʻi Ash) that killed hundreds (part of a warrior party) and left preserved footprints in ash deposits
From the early 1800s until 1924, activity was nearly continuous at the summit caldera (Kaluapele), often featuring lava lakes in Halemaʻumaʻu. Major overflows filled parts of the caldera. Notable early events include the 1823 Southwest Rift Zone eruption and the 1840 East Rift Zone eruption.
20th Century Highlights
1924: A series of powerful steam explosions (phreatic) in Halemaʻumaʻu ejected rocks and ash; one person was killed. This ended the long period of continuous summit lava- lake activity.
1934– 1952: Quiet period (nearly 18 years of inactivity).
1952: Summit eruption in Halemaʻumaʻu (June– November) with lava fountains, ending the long quiescence.
1955: Lower East Rift Zone (Puna) eruption, first there since 1840, opened multiple vents and destroyed property.
1959: Spectacular Kīlauea Iki eruption with fountains up to ~580 m (1,900 ft).
1960: Kapoho eruption on the lower East Rift Zone destroyed the village of Kapoho.
1969–1974: Maunaulu (East Rift Zone) eruption, one of the longest and most voluminous flank eruptions of the prior 2,200 years.
Other short summit and rift eruptions occurred through the 1960s- 1970s and early 1980s.
The Long Puʻuʻōʻō Eruption (1983– 2018)
This was Kīlauea’s longest and most voluminous historical East Rift Zone eruption (over 35 years). It began on January 3, 1983, with fissures that focused at Puʻuʻōʻō (and later Kupaianaha). It produced ~4.4 km³ of lava, covered >140 km², added new land to the coastline, and destroyed over 200 structures (including much of Kalapana in 1990). Activity was nearly continuous, with pauses of weeks to months.
From 2008 to 2018, a concurrent summit lava lake existed in a new vent within Halemaʻumaʻu, producing a persistent gas plume.
2018 Lower East Rift Zone Eruption and Summit Collapse
In May 2018, magma drained from the summit and Puʻuʻōʻō into the lower East Rift Zone (Leilani Estates area). This produced the largest and most destructive eruption in at least 200 years: ~1 km³ of lava, dozens of fissures, destruction of ~700 structures, and a magnitude- 6.9 earthquake. The summit caldera collapsed in stages (deepening Halemaʻumaʻu by hundreds of meters). The eruption ended in early August 2018.
Post- 2018 Activity (Reawakening)
After a quiet period, activity resumed:
December 2020- May 2021: First post-2018 summit eruption in Halemaʻumaʻu (boiled off a water lake that had formed in the collapse pit).
September 2021- December 2022 (or into 2023 in some accounts): Longer summit eruption filling more of the deepened crater.
Additional short summit eruptions in 2023 (e.g., January, June, September).
June 3, 2024: Brief (~8.5-hour) Southwest Rift Zone eruption.
September 15- 20, 2024: Nāpau Crater eruption on the middle East Rift Zone (first ERZ eruption since 2018).
An episodic lava- fountaining eruption began on December 23, 2024, in Halemaʻumaʻu. By mid- to- late October 2026 it had produced at least 55 episodes of high fountaining (peaks exceeding 500 m / ~1,640- 1,770 ft in some episodes), with pauses of days to nearly two months.
Lava has raised the crater floor significantly (over 100 m in places) but remains contained within the caldera. Scientists use summit tilt (inflation, deflation) to forecast episode windows. As of early November 2026, activity continued with overflows and reinflation after episode 55 (October 17, 2026).
Kīlauea’s eruptions are closely monitored by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Patterns often involve magma storage in summit reservoirs (Halemaʻumaʻu and south caldera) that feed both summit and rift- zone activity. For the absolute latest status, check the USGS HVO website, as conditions can change rapidly.
High-Resolution Body-Wave Tomography of Kı̄lauea’s Summit Magma Storage System From a Dense Passive and Active Source Experiment
This paper presents the highest- resolution seismic images yet of the shallow magma storage system beneath Kīlauea’s summit.
The authors conducted a 37- day hybrid seismic experiment in May- June 2023 that combined a very dense array of nodal seismometers with controlled-source (vibroseis) signals.
Experiment Design
1,815 three- component nodal seismometers deployed in a ~12 times 12 km mesh across the summit and caldera.
396 vibroseis source positions using a large T- Rex vibroseis truck that generated controlled seismic vibrations.
Combined with natural local earthquakes.
Resulted in ~15 million P- and S- wave arrivals
Methods and Results
Joint inversion of the earthquake and active- source travel times produced 3- D models of:
Compressional- wave velocity (Vp)
Shear -wave velocity (Vs)
Vp/Vs ratio
Models cover the upper ~4 km (relative to mean sea level) on a 500 m grid. Resolution tests confirm recovery of sub- kilometer to kilometer- scale features.
Key findings:
Two principal magma storage regions, each ~2 km across:
Beneath Halemaʻumaʻu crater
Beneath the south caldera
Both appear as zones of reduced Vs (and moderately reduced Vp) with elevated Vp/Vs at depths of 1- 3 km below sea level.
The anomalies are laterally distinct at shallow levels but appear to merge into a broader low- velocity zone at greater depth.
Surrounding higher- velocity rock is interpreted as stronger intrusive complexes that help confine the magma.
The seismic anomalies spatially match independent geodetic (deformation) models of magma reservoirs, supporting the interpretation.
Previous seismic images lacked the resolution to clearly separate individual reservoirs because of sparse permanent station coverage.
This hybrid dense- array approach overcomes that limitation and provides a much sharper view of how magma is stored and potentially connected beneath the summit.
The authors note that the methodology can be applied at other active volcanoes.
The images show magma stored in two regions. One under Halemaʻumaʻu is consistent with hot, fractured rock that may contain magma and gases.
The second under the south caldera is more confined. They are separate near the surface but may link deeper. Higher- velocity rock around them acts as a mechanical boundary.
Imaging magma storage beneath active calderas requires resolving crustal structure at scales comparable to those of individual reservoirs. To identify potential reservoirs beneath Kı̄lauea, Hawai’i, we conducted a hybrid seismic experiment at its summit for 37 days in 2023 that combined more than 1,800 three-component nodal seismometers with 396 vibroseis source positions, yielding about 15 million 𝑃– and 𝑆-wave arrivals. Joint inversion of earthquake and active-source travel times yields three-dimensional models of 𝑉𝑝, 𝑉𝑠, and 𝑉𝑝/𝑉𝑠 within the upper ∼4 km beneath the summit relative to mean sea level, parameterized on a 500 m grid, within which the resolution tests demonstrate recovery of sub-kilometer to kilometer-scale structure. The models delineate two principal magma storage regions beneath Halema’uma’u and the south caldera, each on the order of 2 km across. Both reservoirs are expressed as localized zones of reduced 𝑉𝑠 and moderately reduced 𝑉𝑝 with locally elevated 𝑉𝑝/𝑉𝑠 at depths of 1–3 km below sea level. The anomalies are laterally distinct at shallow levels but appear to merge within a broader zone of reduced velocities at depth. Surrounding higher-velocity domains likely represent mechanically stronger intrusive complexes that confine magma storage. Spatial correspondence between seismic velocity anomalies and independently modeled geodetic deformation sources supports the interpretation that the imaged structures represent magma storage regions. These results demonstrate that dense nodal arrays combined with hybrid passive-active tomography can resolve reservoir-scale structure at active volcanoes and provide an improved framework for interpreting magma storage and transport beneath Kı̄lauea.
Rupert Darwall, previously special adviser to the UK’s then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont and currently Senior Fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics (NCEA), has spent the better part of two decades doing what few writers on climate policy dare to do: following the money, the meetings and the memoranda behind the West’s great green crusade.
Rupert Darwall, previously special adviser to the UK’s then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont and currently Senior Fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics (NCEA), has spent the better part of two decades doing what few writers on climate policy dare to do: following the money, the meetings and the memoranda behind the West’s great green crusade. The Age of Error, newly published, is his most ambitious book (out of three) yet. It attempts nothing less than an explanation of why the West – with the significant exception of Trump’s America – chose to disarm itself economically, energetically and militarily at the very moment big-power geopolitics returned with a vengeance. The book is sweeping in its coverage of world events, learned in its focus on key issues, often brilliant in untangling the machinations that occur in the corridors of power. Yet, in one crucial respect, it is curiously conventional.
From Lehman to L’Aquila
Darwall’s age of error begins with the 2008 financial crisis. Elected politicians lost the authority to govern on their own account. Drawing on Bertrand de Jouvenel, Darwall argues that they recovered it by borrowing the prestige of experts: central bankers, climate scientists and public health officials. The result was what he calls “the co-dependency of politicians and experts with its command to ‘follow the science’”. Decisions migrated from parliaments to unelected committees (quangos in British parlance), and dissent became heresy.
The central bankers went first. Deficit financing and near-zero interest rates were supposed to restore growth; the Bank of England alone bought close to £900 billion of assets. Growth never properly resumed. What came instead were zombie firms, inflated asset prices, stalled productivity and, eventually, the inflation of 2021–22 that the monetary mandarins failed to see coming. Darwall reads this as a Keynesian conceit, the opposite of Schumpeter’s creative destruction of a vibrant capitalism. The real supply-side miracle of the period came not from Threadneedle Street or the Federal Reserve but from the shale fields of Texas and North Dakota, despite the Obama administration’s hostility to fracking.
Easy money had a further consequence. “Easy money begat ESG,” Darwall writes. Cheap capital disguised the true cost of capital-intensive wind and solar, while Wall Street embraced environmental, social and governance investing to buy itself a social licence after the crash. Mark Carney’s campaign to turn central banks into climate regulators, which I criticised at the time, and the fatal combination of central banking and ESG that followed, belong to the same story. Markets killed ESG in 2022, as Darwall wryly observes, although the regulators in the EU have not got the message, as I noted recently.
The intellectual spine of the book is the West’s abandonment of energy realism. Darwall contrasts the St Petersburg G8 of 2006 with the L’Aquila G8 summit of 2009. The 2006 G8 was the last occasion on which Western leaders spoke collectively as members of a fossil-fuelled civilisation focused on energy security. In 2009, the G8 inaugurated “an era of green Keynesianism”, promising emissions cuts of 80% or more by 2050 while claiming that green stimulus would deliver “sustainable growth”. “It was a jumble of policy incoherence,” Darwall writes. It was also a programme to replace efficient energy with inefficient energy, reversing the trajectory of progress since the industrial revolution.
The climate juggernaut, dissected
Darwall is unrivalled in explaining the anatomy of the UN climate process. His account of the small island states as climate ‘martyrs’ is a gem. The poster-child image of the Maldives vanishing beneath the waves served NGOs and island diplomats well. It helped win both the 1.5°C target and the $100 billion climate finance pledge. Yet a 2015 study of a central Pacific atoll that Darwall cites found that “no islands have been lost, the majority have enlarged”. Politics, as he says, “led the science”.
His account of the Paris agreement is equally penetrating. “NGOs turned out to be the most powerful players at the Paris COP.” The formula of Net Zero by 2050 had first been pitched to Obama’s climate envoy, Todd Stern, over an “eye-wateringly expensive tea in London”. “Adopting the goal of Net Zero would be the self-inflicted price the West paid for obtaining a climate agreement at Paris,” Darwall writes. China, meanwhile, kept building coal plants and captured the supply chains of the very ‘green’ industries the West subsidised. Far from liberalising China, WTO membership meant that “America and the West had invited a tiger to eat their lunch”. The belief that climate change poses an existential threat, Darwall concludes, “is an artefact of the Western mind in thrall to an ideology – environmentalism”.
The British chapters will be painful reading for anyone who still believes Westminster governs in the national interest. In June 2019, a lame-duck Theresa May made Net Zero law by statutory instrument, approved after an 88-minute Commons debate without a vote. Her Chancellor Philip Hammond had warned that the cost would be “well in excess of a trillion pounds”. Darwall’s data show a 20.7% increase in British generating capacity producing 24.2% less electricity. “Producing less with more is the essential fact of the energy transition,” he writes. Britain now pays the highest electricity prices in the industrialised world. The folly of ‘climate leadership’ by a country with less than 1% of global emissions is a theme I have covered in these pages.
On the WHO-declared Covid pandemic, Darwall is unsparing. The cover-up of the virus’s origins “has every claim to be the greatest crime in the history of science”, and even the CIA now judges a laboratory origin more likely. His parallels between ‘The Science’ of climate and of the pandemic, from the censorship of dissent to the freezing out of advisers such as William Happer (on climate) and Scott Atlas (on public health), are insightful and right on the mark.
Darwall reads Donald Trump’s election as the populist revolt against all this. “Trump’s re-election killed climate catastrophism as a political force,” he writes. Trump told the UN General Assembly that climate change was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”. Eleven months after the election, in Darwall’s phrase, “Bill Gates read the funeral rites for climate change”, an epiphanic retreat from doomsday rhetoric.
The Russian blind spot
It is all the more surprising, then, that a writer so alert to the manufactured consensus on climate and Covid accepts the Western consensus on Russia almost wholesale. “Russia today and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s are both revisionist powers,” he writes. “Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and her band of EU appeasers had cleared the way for Europe’s most destructive war since World War II.” He calls the “Washington-backed coup” narrative of 2014, which John Mearsheimer adopted, “spurious”. Yet Mearsheimer’s broader thesis, that NATO expansion lay at the root of the conflict, echoes the warnings of diplomats such as George Kennan and William Burns.
To his credit, Darwall gives the realists a hearing. He quotes William Burns, then US ambassador in Moscow, warning Condoleezza Rice in February 2008 that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).” Burns had already cabled that membership could split Ukraine and “force Russia to decide whether to intervene”. He quotes Sir Roderic Lyne, Britain’s former ambassador to Moscow, who called the push to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO at Bucharest “stupid on every level”. He even concedes that Western governments “were culpable in ignoring the advice of their diplomats and national security experts”. He names George Kennan, “the architect of Cold War containment”, among the critics but does not quote Kennan’s own 1998 verdict that NATO expansion was “a tragic mistake” and “the beginning of a new cold war”.
Darwall nonetheless dismisses the warnings on three grounds, none of which I find persuasive. First, he cites a 1990 memo by Gorbachev’s adviser Anatoly Chernyaev arguing that Moscow’s security rests on the nuclear balance, so NATO’s advance could not really threaten it. By that logic the United States, with overwhelming nuclear superiority in 1962, had nothing to fear from Soviet missiles in Cuba. It risked nuclear war anyway. Second, he notes that Viktor Yanukovych’s declaration of neutrality in 2010 took NATO membership off the table and that it returned only because of Putin’s aggression. But Yanukovych was driven from office in 2014, and the 2008 Bucharest promise that Ukraine “will become” a member was never withdrawn. Third, he cites Britain’s then Defence Secretary Ben Wallace for the claim that ethnonationalism, not NATO expansion, lies at the heart of Putin’s position. A minister who would soon be sending Ukraine made-in-Britain long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles is hardly a disinterested witness.
The Norwegian scholar Glenn Diesen put the realist case in a recent interview. The post-Cold War settlement, he argues, was meant to rest on indivisible security, the principle written into the 1990 Charter of Paris that no state should enhance its security at the expense of another’s. Darwall argues that the “not one inch eastward” assurances given to Gorbachev concerned German reunification only and that NATO expansion beyond Germany “was simply not an issue at the time”. Even if that is so, NATO’s march to Russia’s borders replaced indivisible security with the potential for NATO to base nuclear-capable missiles closer to Russia, down to seven to 10 minutes’ flight time to Moscow. In this view a neutral Ukraine was always in everyone’s interest, Ukraine’s above all, as Henry Kissinger argued in 2014.
Darwall’s account contains an unresolved conundrum. Ukraine’s move to the West, he writes, threatened not Russian security but “Putin’s rule”, and he quotes Ambassador Lyne saying the Kremlin’s leaders “know they are not legitimate”. On this telling, Putin is so weak that he cannot afford a free Ukraine moving towards the EU and NATO to be held up as an example for ordinary Russians to emulate. Yet Darwall himself concedes that Ukraine was “poorer, more corrupt, more oligarch-dominated and less politically stable” than Russia, hardly a model Russians were clamouring to follow. A few pages later Putin is Bismarck, a cold calculator bent on redrawing the map of Europe, a revisionist power akin to interwar Germany with “ambitions to re-establish Russian power in the post-Soviet space”. Darwall also cites Angela Stent’s observation that after 1991 Russia’s presence in Europe “had shrunk to its smallest extent since the 17th Century”. A Russia that could not take Kyiv in 2022 is hardly a Wehrmacht poised on the Rhine.
What the appeasement frame leaves out
Darwall sees appeasement in the West’s insistence on the Minsk agreements. He describes Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond urging Kyiv to honour them as “epitomising the prevailing spirit of appeasement”. Yet Merkel herself later admitted that Minsk was “an attempt to give Ukraine time”. The book is silent on the Istanbul talks of spring 2022, which, as Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko have documented, came close to a settlement built on Ukrainian neutrality. If there was a failure of Western statecraft, it looks less like appeasement than its opposite.
Darwall notes that Volodymyr Zelensky won 73% of the vote in 2019 by offering “the prospect of peace with Russia through dialogue”, and he concludes that Putin’s subsequent choices “defy reason”. The question not asked is why that mandate was never delivered, and why the Istanbul talks of spring 2022 came so close to a settlement only to collapse after Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv. According to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, Johnson’s message was that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with”; Johnson calls the charge that he sank the talks “total nonsense”. By 2024, Zelensky had instead signed a law to ban religious organisations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Darwall’s account of the green NGOs in the corridors of power in Western capitals and within the UN and other multilateral agencies is among the most penetrating analyses available in the literature about these amorphous entities. But disappointingly, there is little if any coverage of Washington DC’s ‘democracy promotion’ networks run by the State Department and its grantees and quasi-governmental bodies such as the Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy.
Darwall notes that Victoria Nuland – the Obama State Department’s point woman on Ukraine – was in Kyiv backing the protesters when she was caught on a leaked call discussing who should form the next government. Darwall casts her – not without reason – as someone who “would acquire an outsize role in the depiction of subsequent events, not least because that’s how she liked to present herself”. In December 2013, three weeks into the Maidan protests, Nuland told a Washington DC audience that since 1991 the United States had “invested over $5 billion” to assist Ukraine’s ‘democratic’ development. Tracking these vast sums through the web of the State Department’s and USAID’s NGO grantees in ‘democracy promotion’ would have been of considerable interest to understanding the events of the Maidan revolution.
At its economic core, Russian-European relations have been based on Soviet and then Russian natural gas, flowing to West Germany since 1973 and a pillar of German industry for half a century. And it was disputes over natural gas trade that created “the first test of wills between the Paper Empire [i.e. the EU] and Vladimir Putin”, as Darwall puts it. Following Thane Gustafson’s account, Darwall casts the EU’s victory over Gazprom on its third energy package as proof that “the Paper Empire had teeth”. An oil and gas industry veteran might see instead gas following oil after the 1986 oil price collapse, from rigid OPEC-based oil-indexed contracts towards liquid spot markets. Darwall charges Gazprom with “softening up” Europe in 2021, while conceding that it “continued to honour its long-term gas contracts”. A supplier that meets its contracts and declines to sell more into a spot market is behaving as the liberalised market Brussels built incentivised it to.
What’s sauce for the goose
Perhaps the deepest omission in many accounts of Russia’s alleged revanchism under President Putin is the Cuban analogy. Darwall’s book offers no mention of the 1962 missile crisis. Glenn Diesen asks us to imagine a Russia helping to topple an elected government in Mexico, installing a hostile regime through ‘democracy promotion’ and arming it to strike the US heartland. No American president would or could accept it. To recognise great powers’ security interests on their borders is not appeasement but the beginning of diplomacy.
Darwall calls the 2014 annexation of Crimea, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking population, “the first forcible redrawing of borders in Europe since 1945”. He relegates Kosovo to a “partial exception”. Yet the Kosovo precedent was created by NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 without UN authorisation. The ‘rules-based order’ Darwall invokes was frayed by Western interventions from Serbia to Iraq and Libya long before 2014.
There is an irony here. Darwall quotes with approval the Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy in rejecting “the disastrous ‘climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’ ideologies”. He urges taking “a hammer” to them. But he balks when the same document calls the outsized influence of larger and stronger nations “a timeless truth of international relations”, dismissing realism as “a species of utilitarianism”. He follows Trump on climate, but not on Russia.
None of this makes Russia an innocent. But Darwall, who exposes better than anyone how elites manufactured an existential climate threat, should recognise the pattern when it recurs. Having wrecked their economies with Net Zero, Europe’s leaders now ask their citizens to prepare for war with Russia. I described that descent from green folly to military mobilisation earlier this month.
Realism or dissolution?
Darwall closes with a warning that if the West does not correct its path, “the age of error” will be followed by “an age of dissolution”. It is an ominous warning. On climate, central banking, ESG and Covid, his prescriptions are compelling: smash the Net Zero ideology, re-carbonise and restore democratic choice over expert diktat across the board. But this counter-revolution cannot stop at the water’s edge. It means taking seriously the perceived security concerns of a neighbouring nuclear-armed superpower, as Kennan, Kissinger and Burns did. On that score Darwall’s otherwise formidable book remains a prisoner of the establishment consensus it demolishes so effectively elsewhere. Whatever one’s view is of the vexed Russia question, Darwall’s tour de force should not be tossed lightly aside – it deserves to be closely read and argued with.
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.
A recent Phys.org article by Paul Arnold (November 2, 2026) covers a study reconstructing the climate of 17th- century Transylvania from historical records, showing it was marked by severe cold and wet extremes during the Little Ice Age.
The Maunder Minimum (roughly 1645– 1715) was a prolonged period of extremely low solar activity, during which sunspots were rare (fewer than 50 observed in some multi- decade stretches, versus tens of thousands in comparable modern intervals). It is classified as a “grand minimum” of the solar cycle.
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A recent Phys.org article by Paul Arnold (November 2, 2026) covers a study reconstructing the climate of 17th- century Transylvania from historical records, showing it was marked by severe cold and wet extremes during the Little Ice Age.
The study, published in PLOS Climate (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000961) and led by Ovidiu Răzvan Gaceu (University of Oradea, Romania) with co-authors including Tudor Caciora, analyzed 937 written accounts from 68 localities.
Sources included chronicles, diaries, town and church records, travelogues, administrative and monastic documents. Researchers categorized explicit weather mentions, indirect indicators (e.g., delayed crop ripening, frozen rivers), and societal impacts (ruined crops, food price spikes). They cross-checked accounts for confirmation by multiple sources and compared them with natural proxies such as cave ice and tree rings to improve reliability.
Key findings
Harsh winters: 55 exceptionally severe winters in the century; 36 of them between 1645 and 1700 (during the Maunder Minimum of very low solar activity). From roughly 1645– 1668, most winters were especially cold. Cold weather dominated seasonal reports (about 73%), though there were occasional mild winters and hot summers.
Precipitation: Excessively wet conditions (heavy rain, floods, snow, hail) far outnumbered droughts, though droughts still occurred (e.g., in the 1630s).
Societal impacts: Climate extremes contributed to poor harvests (many years of failures), high food prices, famines (notably periods like 1601– 1606 and 1648– 1652), and conditions favoring epidemics such as plague (reported in 31 years). These compounded existing stresses from wars and political instability. Specific examples include rivers and lakes freezing solid (e.g., 1645), military campaigns halted by cold and snow, and major floods.
Possible drivers of the regional cooling and wetter conditions include low solar activity, volcanic eruptions, and shifts in atmospheric circulation and wind patterns. The authors note these climatic stresses intensified (but did not solely cause) social crises.
This fits the broader Little Ice Age (roughly 1300– 1850s in Europe), with the late 17th century among its coldest phases, especially winters.
It builds on related work by the same group on 16th- century Transylvanian climate (which showed more heat and drought early on). The reconstruction highlights how historical documents (“society’s archive”) complement natural proxies and illustrate both climate variability and human responses.
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The Maunder Minimum (roughly 1645– 1715) was a prolonged period of extremely low solar activity, during which sunspots were rare (fewer than 50 observed in some multi- decade stretches, versus tens of thousands in comparable modern intervals). It is classified as a “grand minimum” of the solar cycle.
Its cause is internal to the Sun and is not fully understood in detail, but the leading scientific explanation centers on the solar dynamo, the process in the Sun’s convective zone that generates and sustains its large- scale magnetic field.
Key points from solar physics
Solar activity (sunspots, flares, etc.) is driven by the dynamo, which normally produces the ~11- year Schwabe cycle (and the underlying ~22- year magnetic Hale cycle).
Grand minima like the Maunder Minimum occur when the dynamo enters a special, suppressed mode. Stochastic (random) fluctuations in key processes—especially the generation of the poloidal magnetic field and variations in meridional circulation (large-scale plasma flows), can push the dynamo below a critical threshold. This leads to intermittent, greatly reduced magnetic activity.
Observational clues supporting a distinct dynamo state include strong north-south hemispheric asymmetry in the few sunspots that did appear, unusual differential rotation, reduced auroral activity, and evidence from cosmogenic isotopes (such as carbon- 14 in tree rings and beryllium-10). The magnetic cycle appears to have continued at a low level rather than stopping completely.
Dynamo models successfully reproduce grand minima when realistic levels of randomness are included, and historical records show the Sun has spent roughly one- sixth of the Holocene in such states.
No external trigger (e.g., a specific planetary alignment or interstellar influence) is required or supported by evidence; the phenomenon arises from the nonlinear, turbulent nature of the solar magnetic engine.
Relation to climate (for context)
The Maunder Minimum roughly overlapped part of the Little Ice Age, and reduced solar irradiance likely contributed modestly to cooler conditions in some regions (especially winters in the Northern Hemisphere).
However, the primary drivers of the broader Little Ice Age cooling are now considered to be volcanic eruptions, with solar changes playing a secondary role. The Little Ice Age began well before the Maunder Minimum.
In short, the Maunder Minimum was caused by a temporary, self- organized suppression of the Sun’s magnetic dynamo due to internal fluctuations. The precise threshold- crossing mechanism remains an active research topic in solar physics.
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Climatic extremes and their social implications in 17th century Transylvania: An historical climate reconstruction
Abstract summary
The study reconstructs climate variability in the Principality of Transylvania during the 17th century (part of the Little Ice Age and the Maunder Minimum of very low solar activity) using written historical sources. It focuses on temperature and precipitation anomalies plus related calamities and their societal effects.
Key results:
55 particularly harsh winters in the century; 36 of them occurred during the Maunder Minimum (1645– 1700).
Numerous episodes of excessive precipitation (especially in winter), with wet conditions far outweighing droughts.
These extremes contributed to poor harvests, famine, high food prices, and the spread of severe epidemics (especially plague), worsening existing social and political stresses.
Findings align with natural proxy data (e.g., cave ice, tree rings). Natural drivers such as reduced solar activity and changes in atmospheric circulation are indicated as likely contributors to the colder, wetter conditions, particularly in Maunder Minimum winters.
Study details
Data: 937 distinct climate- related testimonies from 68 localities, drawn from chronicles, diaries, official and monastic regists, travellers’ accounts, etc.
Methods: Sources coded into categories (direct weather mentions, phenologicaland environmental indicators such as frozen rivers or delayed crops, and socio- economic impacts). Independent dual coding with third- party resolution of discrepancies; cross- validation against natural archives.
Context: Builds on the authors’ earlier work on 16th- century Transylvania (which showed more heat and drought early in that century). The 17th century shows a clear shift toward colder and wetter conditions.
The full open- access paper includes maps of source locations, figures on seasonal anomalies, indices of wet and dry conditions, and discussion of how climate extremes interacted with wars, political instability, and disease in the region.
Authors: Ovidiu Răzvan Gaceu, Tudor Caciora (corresponding), Mihai Dudaș, Ștefan Baias, Marius Stupariu, Maria Maxim, Cătălina Mărculeț (primarily University of Oradea, Romania).
The road out of my hometown in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu runs between rows of wind turbines. For most of my life I treated them as scenery, admiring them as a technical marvel.
Danish engineers helped install the state’s first 110 turbines between 1985 and 1992, and the Muppandal cluster in Kanyakumari district grew into India’s largest onshore wind farm at 1.5 gigawatts.
The road out of my hometown in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu runs between rows of wind turbines. For most of my life I treated them as scenery, admiring them as a technical marvel.
In 2017, a friend who ran a factory told me how erratic swings in electricity supply had caused damage and lost orders, wiping out months of profits. He linked the problem to the surging and fading of wind power on the grid. That was a warning. Nine years later, the entire state is experiencing the same grid failures at a far higher cost.
Officials blame a heatwave for the need to buy additional power. Peak demand jumped nearly 30%, driven by El Niño conditions that kept air conditioners and fans running long after the usual summer peak. Central generating stations also cut back on generation to accommodate scheduled maintenance.
But the real culprit is a drop in wind production to about 14% of what contracts had promised. Nobody should be surprised. The wind season in Tamil Nadu ends every year around this time. Solar output drops to zero after sunset, which explains why the shortage is between 6 p.m. and midnight. Hydropower, a weather-bound source that depends on reservoir levels and monsoon inflows, offered no meaningful rescue.
Consider who filled the gap. Every bidder in the emergency tender was a gas-fired generator, some of them in Assam 1,400 miles away. Gas won because it starts and stops on command. The state that spent three decades celebrating wind turbines now pays a premium for the one quality they cannot offer – on-demand dispatchability.
Tamil Nadu is India’s second-largest state economy, with a quarter of its output coming from manufacturing, which requires an affordable, continuous supply of electricity.
This month, in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu’s fourth-largest city, knitwear factories reported production losses as computerized machines failed under sudden outages and low voltage. They suffered the same damage my friend had described nine years ago. Spinning mills near Madurai were told to switch to diesel generators, whose electricity costs significantly more than the grid’s.
Tamil Nadu’s planners must stop relating to installed wind capacity as if it were a reliable source. A turbine that produces at 14% of its contracted level during peak demand cannot support a power grid for many millions of people. India’s second-largest economy needs an energy supply based on coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at theCO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.
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