Enormous thanks to my anonymous donor for May, who wishes to call attention to Rob Mielcarski’s thought-provoking un-denial site, also featured in my blogroll, which looks at overshoot and related issues.
“Earth’s albedo has decreased .5%. We described this change as a BFD [big f*cking deal] because it has staggering implications.
“A 1.7 W/m2 increase of absorbed solar energy is huge. If it were a climate forcing, it would be equivalent to a CO2 increase of 138 ppm.” [Jim Hansen]
https://mailchi.mp/caa/large-cloud-feedback-confirms-high-climate-sensitivity
“Figure of the day: Over the last YEAR, Copernicus’ extrapolated date for breaching 1.5C of warming (based on the 30-year trend) has moved FORWARD (aka “sooner”) by 19 months.
“Think about that.” [Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD]
https://x.com/ryankatzrosene/status/1922649519897891024
“The Arctic is getting wetter. Higher temperatures→more evaporation from oceans→higher atmospheric humidity→total precipitation (snow+rain) is increasing.
“Snowfall would be increasing were it not for warming that crosses the 0°C threshold more often. Thus, the Arctic precipitation increase is dominated by more rainfall.” [Prof Jason Box]
https://x.com/climate_ice/status/1922669141468627193
“Authorities in the Siberian republic of Buryatia on Tuesday declared a regionwide state of emergency as firefighters continued to battle rapidly spreading wildfires blamed on human activity.
“Buryatia, which borders Mongolia, is the second-hardest hit region in Russia during this year’s wildfire season…”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/13/siberias-buryatia-declares-wildfire-emergency-a89059
“24.2C [75.6F] in ICELAND! Egilsstaðaflugvöllur (i am not even try to pronounce) and this is just the beginning.
“Iceland is gonna live an insane warm spell, with records smashed by dozens for days. National record [25.6C] for spring is at risk next days.”
https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1922682319317467248
“UK on track for driest spring on record as temperatures to hit 25C this week…
“Asked if the weather was unusual for this time of year, Met Office spokesperson Oliver Claydon told The Independent: “It is a notably prolonged spell of settled and dry weather.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/weather/uk-weather-driest-spring-temperatures-b2750635.html
“Country diary: A wildfire has killed off (nearly) everything wild [Wales]…
“Wildfires have always been a fixture here, but they sound a more troubling note now. Spring and summer are arriving early, and nature is forced to adjust, with birds building their nests weeks earlier too…”
“Marine scientists and conservationists have expressed shock after finding ancient coral beds in Cornwall smothered in algae caused by sewage and run-off…
“Matt Slater, a marine conservation officer at the trust, said it was “a massive concern” and improvement to the water quality in the Fal Estuary was needed urgently.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp92nxp2gdxo
“Spring likely to be driest ever in the Netherlands; Rainfall about 50% below 1976 record…
“The driest spring season in the country’s history happened in 1976, when 68 millimeter of rainfall was measured in total. Since the start of spring on March 1, just 35 millimeter of rainfall has been measured… The season ends on May 31.”
https://nltimes.nl/2025/05/13/spring-likely-driest-ever-netherlands-rainfall-50-1976-record
“Dengue and chikungunya may soon be endemic in Europe due to global warming, research shows.
“Climate change is pushing disease-carrying tiger mosquitoes deeper into Europe, raising the risk that once-tropical viruses like dengue and chikungunya could become endemic across the continent, new research warns.”
“Growers in eastern Spain count cost of hailstorms.
“Stonefruit, citrus, almonds and vegetables hit, with damage reportedly running into millions of euros. Producers across eastern Spain are assessing the fallout of severe storms that swept through the region in the past week.”
https://www.fruitnet.com/eurofruit/growers-in-eastern-spain-count-cost-of-hailstorms/266693.article
“Bad weather in Algeria: 4 dead including a child killed by hailstones…
“In Djelfa, a 13-year-old boy succumbed to injuries caused by hailstones in the area known as Dhayet Rmel in the Oum Al Khachab region, the Civil Protection announced in a provisional report published on the evening of Wednesday to Thursday, May 15.”
https://www.tsa-algerie.com/intemperies-en-algerie-4-morts-dont-un-enfant-tue-par-des-grelons/
“BRUTAL HEAT IN NORTH AFRICA:
“47C Faya CHAD; 46.8C Bilma NIGER; Yesterday 47.2 [117F] In Guezzam ALGERIA is an ALL TIME HIGH temperature for the station.”
https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1922749668338905147
“17 killed and 84,000 others displaced in flash floods in Somalia.
“Somalia, a country with nearly two-thirds of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods, has experienced extreme climate shocks in the past, including prolonged dry seasons causing drought and heavy rains leading to flooding.”
https://www.en.etemaaddaily.com/world/international/17-killed-in-flash-floods-in-somalia:175410
“From cause to consequence: examining the historic April 2024 rainstorm in the United Arab Emirates through the lens of climate change…
“Our findings strongly suggest that anthropogenic climate change is amplifying the frequency of extreme events like that of 16 April 2024. The event was primarily fueled by the interaction of a potential vorticity streamer with an active Red Sea Trough…”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-025-01073-1
“Massive heat wave to hit Israel this weekend, meteorological service warns.
“An extreme heat wave is expected to hit Israel this weekend, with some forecasts predicting temperatures as high as 46.5°C (115°F) in the southern city of Eilat… Some of the temperatures …would break 25-year heat records for the month of May.”
“BRUTAL DEADLY HEAT IN THE FORMER USSR – 45.6c [114.1F] Sarakhs TURKMENISTAN. 14 stations >39C. 43.0 Khiva UZBEKISTAN 36 stations >38C!
“Nearly the whole Central Asia destroyed their spring records… Absurd minimums, eg 27.8 Beyneau Lat 45N – Kazakhstan hottest spring night in history.”
https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1922630476487070067
“Pakistan writes to India with an ‘appeal’: Reconsider Indus waters decision…
“New Delhi refrained from commenting on the “appeal.” Sources told the news outlet that the letter would not affect the decision that the cabinet committee on security took on April 23 to put the treaty on hold.”
“Severe heatwave alert issued for Punjab [Pakistan] amid rising temperatures.
“PDMA Director General Irfan Ali Kathia has directed all commissioners, deputy commissioners, and district administrations to remain on high alert and ensure emergency preparedness.”
“RECORD HEAT AGAIN IN INDIA:
“Stifling hot night all over the country with minimums >30C [86F] in the West, East, North and South. May hottest might in history broken again at Thanjvur with a minimum temperature of 31.0C. Nearly ever single day of 2025 has seen heat records in India.”
https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1922581244442751140
“Thousands of cars damaged by hail in Beijing, long queues formed at repair shops, 4S stores suffered heavy losses.
“Due to the large hail, a large number of open-air vehicles were seriously damaged. As of the evening of the 14th, Beijing’s property insurance agencies had received a total of 45,600 reports of various insurance type.”
https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2025/05/14/a103986481.html
“ENDLESS RECORD HEAT IN INDONESIA:
“In more than 2 years, not a single day has passed without heat records in Indonesia. Today Tanah Merah broke BOTH its records of May highest minimum and maximum with 25.9/36.4.”
https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1922268185987776823
“Several locations in Tangerang and South Tangerang, which is just outside Jakarta, were inundated by flooding due to downpours on Tuesday evening…
“”I’m also surprised because the rain was brief, but it’s flooding this much,” said Yangga, one of the residents whose travel was hampered by the flood due to inaccessible roads.”
https://en.tempo.co/read/2006811/downpours-cause-flooding-in-indonesias-tangerang-city
“Chile turns to desalination plants amid water crisis…
“She said that the country experienced extreme droughts in 2019 and 2021 and that this is part of a wider precipitation deficit. “This is due to two overlapping phenomena: inter-annual variability combined with the effect of anthropogenic climate change.””
https://dialogue.earth/en/water/chile-turns-to-desalination-plants-amid-water-crisis/
“101 Degrees in May? Even for Texas, This Is Hot…
“Temperatures soared dangerously high across south and central Texas on Wednesday amid what forecasters with the National Weather Service called “one of the hottest May heat waves of all time.””
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/weather/texas-heat-record-may.html
“This week’s rain has already led to more than a dozen mudslides in areas of western North Carolina that are still recovering from Hurricane Helene.
“Several inches of rain have fallen over towns like Bat Cave in the last few days. Jake Jarvis, a local grader working to restore different parts of the town, has seen the mudslide impact in the Lake Lure area.”
“Severe flooding devastated some Western Maryland communities in Allegany and Garrett counties, where children had to be rescued from their schools this week…
“”It’s heartbreaking, the kind of impact we’re seeing, particularly in the western part of the state,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told WJZ on Wednesday.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-governor-children-flooding-allegany-wes-moore/
“‘All kinds of nutty about climate.’ New York’s Rochester draws residents fleeing extreme weather…
“One of America’s first boomtowns and a former manufacturing hub, Rochester has captured the eye of some people looking to escape extreme weather events.”
“Minnesota wildfires fueled by ‘near critical’ heat destroy buildings, force evacuations.
“Firefighters battling three wildfires in northern Minnesota are expecting another day of “near critical” fire weather on May 14 as thousands of acres continue to burn, prompting evacuations and destroying buildings.”
“CANADA HISTORIC HEAT – 3rd day in a row >35C, totally unprecedented this time of the year; 37.0 [98.6F] and May record also at Carman.
“RECORD HIGH TMINS: 22.5C Winnipeg/The Forks, 22.1C Kleefeld, 21.9C Deerwood, 21.1C Emerson, 20.9C Winnipeg A, 20.8C Morden, 20.3C Pinawa, 20.2C Great Falls.”
https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1922567158522888350
“Major Canada wildfire kills two and forces 1,000 people to evacuate homes…
“Canadian federal police confirmed on Wednesday that two people died in the small community of Lac du Bonnet, in the central province of Manitoba, which is experiencing unusually hot, dry and windy conditions.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/14/canada-wildfire-manitoba-evacuations
“Massive wildfires in Canada helped keep the world cooler in 2023.
“Despite setting a global temperature record, 2023 might have been even hotter were it not for the cooling effect of smoke from massive wildfires in Canada.”
https://archive.vn/4dRAR#selection-631.0-635.154
“How Climate Change Is Impacting People’s Ability to Have Healthy Pregnancies…
“Between 2020 to 2024, the average number of pregnancy heat-risk days—defined as days in which maximum temperatures are warmer than 95% of temperatures observed in a given location—doubled in 222 countries.”
https://time.com/7285515/climate-change-impact-healthy-pregnancy/
“Plastic may be warming the planet more than we thought…
“Plastic production creates about 5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions… But the estimate doesn’t consider how microplastics in the ocean and soil disrupt the natural cycles that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and cool the planet.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/05/14/microplastics-climate-change/
“Democracies appear greener by outsourcing pollution to autocratic nations, study finds…
“The researchers cited earlier UN reports that documented how countries such as Japan and Germany reduced their emissions at home while increasing the emissions they were effectively responsible for abroad, mainly through imports from countries like China.”
“Who’s Paying to Dim the Sun? We Should Know…
“The UK government is a world leader in the field, thanks in part to a £56.8 million ($75.8 million) climate cooling research program. But the real big dogs are major philanthropies, which have provided about 48% of SRM funding through to the end of 2024. Many of these philanthropic ventures have roots in the worlds of tech and finance.”
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You can read the previous “Climate” thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with an ”Economic” thread.
Hansen tl;dr:
“clouds did not need to be amplifying, but there is a consensus in the models that a warmer world tends to have less cloud cover and some of the clouds tend to move to slightly higher altitude, which decreases heat radiation to space.”
Another killer thread, Panopticon. Things are getting increasingly dire. Thanks for your hard work tracking all of this. I’m glad to be supporting your efforts and I thank everyone else who does too! I know it is a lot of work.
Thank you so much, Cassandra. Doing these threads is a super-intense way to start my days, so support is always very welcome. 💚
Lots of news of existing or soon-to-be wildfire stories today. It’s highly likely that the Siberia situation is pretty dire, and is such every year with many permanent zombie fires. I saw something on Kanal 13 (not in any way reliable but you never know) that showed fires very close to a major city.
https://maps.greenpeace.org/maps/research/en/
On another point I’d like to see Hansen’s views on the two recent papers showing how ocean stratification has contributed to the acceleration in warming but I can’t remember seeing anything from him containing the word..
George, I think the city you mention must be Tsiolkovsky in Amur Oblast. The flames did get alarmingly close but it looks like they’ve managed to extinguish that particular fire. This article has some good pictures:
https://www.gzt-sv.ru/news/240481-lesnoj-pozhar-priamure-ugrozhal-gorodu
I can’t find any discussion of ocean stratification in Hansen’s recent, published papers but it is an important component of his 2016 paper, “Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms,” albeit in the specific context of ice melt. So, I don’t think he has a blind spot, per se. He says:
“Effects of freshwater injection and resulting ocean stratification are occurring sooner in the real world than in our model.”
https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2015/20150704_IceMelt.pdf
Currently safely evacuated from our off-grid,deep in the forest cottage in Northwest Ontario, Canada due to rapidly encroaching wildfire. Now at a hotel in Thunder Bay.
Past few days have been low 30s C, no rain since the snow melted a few weeks ago. 28 C = 82 F. Even the leaves from last fall are crunchy dry and blowing around in the low humidity.
Three water bombers, 2 helicopters have been employed. Chance for rain today…we will see. Latest update: fire still out of control.
Bob Shaw Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Bob, what a nightmare. I hope your cottage remains unscathed and you get that rain! I probably should have included the Ontario fires in my thread but it was getting long:
“Evacuation and travel alerts have been issued in the Fort Frances and Sioux Lookout districts in northwestern Ontario as wildfires continue to grow in both areas. As of Thursday morning, ten forest fires are burning in the northwest region, half of them are not under control.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/wildfires-in-fort-frances-and-sioux-lookout-ont-districts-force-evacuation-alert-travel-restrictions-1.7535508
Damn!! I’m glad you are safe. Hope your cottage makes it through.
Error in one headline. I’ll fix it:
How Climate Change Is Impacting WOMEN’S Ability to Have Healthy Pregnancies…
I did not even clock that! I hope I have not opened a can of worms. 😬😂
More cracks are appearing everywhere and its going to get harder for the system to function soon. In my own life clubs are getting harder to function as costs go up and you can’t get people for things. Pretty soon we will see how long the power can stay on.