better to know...?, climate-debate

Wrong, Deutsche Welle, There Is No Such Thing as a “Super El Niño,” Nor is it on Team Climate

by A. Watts, Aug 25, 2026 in WUWT

Deutsche Welle (DW) claims in “How climate change is teaming up with ‘Super El Nino” that a developing “Super El Niño,” combined with climate change, could make 2026 one of the hottest years on record while increasing the risks of heat waves, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and marine heat waves around the world. This is highly misleading. El Niño are long-recognized naturally recurring ocean-atmosphere cycles that have operated for thousands of years and strong El Niño events have occurred periodically throughout history, long before industrial greenhouse gas emission began to increase.

That alone should make readers skeptical.

The first red flag appears in the headline itself. There is no official meteorological definition of a “Super El Niño.”

El Niño is not a new phenomenon, nor is it evidence of climate change. Long before automobiles, coal-fired power plants, or industrial emissions existed, El Niño events periodically warmed the tropical Pacific Ocean, temporarily altering normal weather patterns around the globe. Paleoclimate records from corals, lake sediments, and other shell middens, and other proxy data show that El Niño events have repeatedly occurred for thousands of years.

Nothing about its existence is evidence of a climate crisis. DW also suggests that climate change is “teaming up” with El Niño to produce record warmth.

That statement reverses cause and effect.

El Niño transfers enormous amounts of stored ocean heat into the atmosphere. That is precisely why global temperatures often spike during strong El Niño years and then decline as La Niña conditions return. This pattern has repeated for centuries.

The strong 1997-98 El Niño produced record global temperatures.

The powerful 2015-16 El Niño did the same.

More recently, the 2023-24 El Niño contributed to another jump in global temperatures before they began moderating as the event weakened. There is nothing unprecedented about this sequence, which is made clear in the Figure below

Neither the World Meteorological Organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, nor the American Meteorological Society recognizes “Super El Niño” as a formal scientific classification. Meteorologists describe El Niño events by measuring sea surface temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific. They may characterize an event as weak, moderate, strong, or very strong, but “Super El Niño” is largely a media invention designed to make a naturally occurring climate pattern sound unprecedented.

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energy and fields

The 1970s Oil Crisis: Never Forget

by R. Bradley, Aug 22, 2026 in WUWT

A while back, Alex Tabarrok with Tyler Cowen recorded “Oil Shocks, Price Controls and War” at the Marginal Revolution website. They advertised it:

Our second podcast on the 1970s titled Oil Shocks, Price Controls and War is now available! Here’s one bit:

Tabarrok: …Sheikh Ahmed Yamani, in a famous statement, he was the oil minister for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he’s a leader of OPEC, he says on October 16th, this is 10 days after the war begins, “This is a moment for which I have been waiting for a long time. The moment has come. We are masters of our own commodity.” They raise the price of oil. Oil production falls by about 9 percent to 10 percent. That doesn’t seem on the surface to be a huge amount, but it reveals something which people had not been prepared for, and that was the inelasticity of oil demand.

I would put it this way. I think this is the key idea here. Almost accidentally, the exporting countries had discovered that the demand for oil was more inelastic than anyone had ever realized. The main lesson they drew before 1973, the oil exporting countries thought that the only way to increase revenues was to produce more. After 1973, they learned that an even better way to increase revenues was to produce less.

Here’s another:

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better to know...?, climate and geology

Hottest July Evah!

by P. Homewood, Aug 20, 2026 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

https://www.climate4you.com/images/EQUATOR%20202607%20vs%20last%2010yr%201200km%20AIRSv6.gif

While Britain and parts of NW Europe have baked in recent weeks, large regions of the world have experienced extreme cold.

In particular, all of those areas surrounding Britain and France were affected by temperatures well below normal in July.

Does not look like global warming to me!

better to know...?, climate-debate

Scientists discover a natural Arctic cloud factory missing from climate models

by  University of Birmingham, Aug 18, 2026 in ScienceDaily

A newly discovered Arctic process can dramatically boost the number of particles that help form clouds. Near melting sea ice, sunlight reacts with chemicals released by the ocean, algae, and ice, causing cloud-seeding particles to multiply by as much as 50 times in a day. Because the active ice-edge region is growing as sea ice retreats, the effect could become increasingly important. Scientists now want to add the process to climate models to see how much it could reshape Arctic warming.
The findings, published August 5 in Nature Geoscience, come from an international team led by the University of Birmingham with collaborators in China and Spain. The researchers provide the first real-world evidence that a powerful particle-forming process occurs where Arctic sea ice meets open ocean. In this zone, marine life and sunlight help produce a chemical mixture that can seed the atmosphere with particles capable of influencing clouds.
…
better to know...?, climate-debate

Comparison Of Two German Weather Forecasts: From 25 Years Ago And From Today

by P. Gosselin, Aug 20, 2026 in NoTricksZone 

Escalating climate language: 25 years ago, 28°C was “pleasant”…today it is called “extremely dangerous”.

The following video link compares two different forecasts for warm summer weather but are allegedly from a couple of decades apart. I can’t be sure of their authenticity, but the language tone differences between back then and today are definitely accurate! Today, the media make summertime in Germany appear as extremely dangerous!

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1YzSiSCk3x/

25 years ago…

The first forecast by the German weather lady is from a couple of decades ago. Here’s what she reported:

Tomorrow we’ll be getting wonderful summer weather! Temperatures will rise to a pleasant 28 to 30 degrees Celsius [82 to 86°F]. Everywhere across the country, there will be plenty of sunshine and only a few fair-weather clouds. Perfect weather for heading to the lake or having an ice cream in the beer garden. Enjoy the summer!”

Versus today

The second made recently by a German weatherman forecasts almost exactly the same weather conditions, but with alarmist tones:

Tomorrow we are facing an extremely dangerous heatwave! Temperatures will climb to a hazardous 28 to 30 degrees Celsius [82 to 86°F]. UV radiation will be extremely high, with an increased risk of high ozone levels and heatstroke. Avoid direct sunlight where possible, stay hydrated, and look out for the elderly and young children.”

climate-debate

Canicules : ce que l’on sait… et surtout ce que l’on ignore encore : une canicule … ou des canicules ?

par G. Granereau, 21 août 2026 in Science, Climat, Energie 

par Granereau Gilles,
Ancien météorologiste, puis chef de projets environnement, aménagements forestiers et tourisme à l’ONF. Spécialisé dans la gestion du littoral (fixation des dunes, gestion de l’érosion marine, etc.), dans les aménagements forestiers à caractère « extensif », dans les aménagements touristiques en milieux sensibles, botaniste. Chargé de mission Natura 2000 pour les dunes d’Arcachon (La Teste) à Tarnos, et pour le grand site militaire du Camp du Poteau (9500 hectares), où j’ai pu travailler entre autres dans la stratégie et la typologie des pare-feu.

Depuis plusieurs semaines, impossible d’y échapper : journaux, radios et chaînes d’information ont fait des épisodes caniculaires de juin et du début juillet 2026 leur sujet favori. Les températures exceptionnellement élevées enregistrées en France ont naturellement suscité de nombreuses interrogations et, très souvent, une même explication est avancée : le « dérèglement climatique ».
Le terme est désormais entré dans le langage courant. Pourtant, derrière cette expression se cache une réalité infiniment plus complexe que ne le laissent parfois entendre les débats médiatiques et politiques. Avant d’attribuer un phénomène météorologique à une cause unique, il est toujours prudent de se poser une question simple : savons-nous réellement pourquoi cette canicule s’est produite ?
Car il existe une différence essentielle entre décrire un phénomène et en expliquer les causes. La première démarche relève de l’observation ; la seconde exige une compréhension approfondie des mécanismes en jeu. En science, ces deux étapes ne coïncident pas toujours. Les chercheurs en savent quelque chose : la nature a cette fâcheuse habitude de ne pas toujours répondre aux questions dans l’ordre où nous les posons.

Image réalisée avec ChatGPT (IA), à partir d’instructions de l’auteur, 2026.

….

better to know...?, climate-debate

Wave Goodbye to the Butterfly Effect …

by M. Jonas, Aug 18, 2026 in WUWT

… and wave as hard as you like. There’s no need to worry about disrupting Earth’s climate.

It has been a long time coming, but I have had another paper on Climate Modelling published – Chaos Theory is Void. It addresses the well-known and generally-accepted Butterfly Effect, aka Chaos Theory. I and others have felt for a long time that the Butterfly Effect exists only in models, and that Earth’s self-correcting weather/climate is too stable for the Butterfly Effect to exist to any meaningful extent in the real world. But how to prove that?

Two years ago, in GCMs Cannot Predict Climate, I described how GCMs (General Circulation Models) cannot predict climate because their iterative mechanism fails after a few weeks. Clearly the iterative mechanism itself is the problem. But how to prove that?

It all stayed on the back-burner for a while, but then I came across a paper that criticised an AI-based model for not being able to replicate the Butterfly Effect. In my previous paper I had argued that the structure of GCMs was upside-down: instead of working bottom-up from weather to climate, a climate model should work top-down with climate. Now, here was AI doing exactly what I argued for and being criticised for not having the same problem as GCMs!

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climate-debate

Incendies de forêt : au-delà du débat climatique, les enseignements de Fontainebleau et de l’Aquitaine

par G. Granereau, 7 août 2026 in Science, Climat, Energie 

Cet article a initialement été rédigé à l’issue des feux de Fontainebleau. Puis sont survenus les incendies en Gironde, et dans les Landes. Passer outre ces feux « hors normes » eut été un manquement à l’objectivité de la problématique.

Un incendie est un phénomène multifactoriel. Chercher une cause unique, quelle qu’elle soit, conduit presque toujours à une mauvaise compréhension du phénomène.

L’objectif de cet article n’est pas d’alimenter une polémique. Il est de rappeler qu’un incendie majeur résulte toujours d’une combinaison de facteurs et que réduire son explication au seul réchauffement climatique conduit à négliger d’autres causes sur lesquelles il est possible d’agir.

La photographie jointe est de 2011, elle illustre les « brûlages dirigés » organisés au Camp du Poteau (terrain militaire à cheval Landes/Gironde), où j’étais chargé de mission Natura 2000 et avais pour mission dans ce cas d’expertiser la technique et d’évaluer son intérêt écologique et stratégique. Le pompiers (militaires et SDIS) pratiquaient dans ce cadre leur formation aux feux tactiques

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climate-debate

TWO KEY POINTS THAT NEED TO BE STRESSED IN A DISCUSSION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

by Climate Science, Aug 18, 2026

The first is that climate is not the same thing as weather. It is quite wrong to say that the climate has changed because we have had two or three hot dry summers. Those are simply weather. Climate change requires there to be an increase in the number of hot dry summers over a thirty year period, when compared to a previous thirty year period.

The second is that even if there has been a change as described above, we cannot simply say that the whole of that change is due to an increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. There is good evidence that warming may also be caused by a change in cloud cover. Or changes in the circulation of the ocean currents. There is still a lot of argument about what proportion of warming can be attributed to each component.

To argue these points is not unreasonable. It is unreasonable not to accept them. You cannot be a climate change denier if you accept that climate can and does change. The evidence must be based on sound statistics.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Just as Hot in 1911

by P. Homewood, Aug 116, 2026 in NotaLotOfPeopleKnowThat

Hottest day of the year in the urban heat ravaged London, where temperatures are generally around three degrees higher than elsewhere:

…

Back in 1911 temperatures in London hit 37.8C (100F):

image

image

In those days, London was known as “The Smoke” for good reason. Coal power stations, gas works, steam trains and pretty much all industry filled the atmosphere with fumes, blocking out much of the sun’s energy.

There is nothing unprecedented about the weather in the past week.

Just as significant are the temperatures in more rural areas – 98F (36.7C) at Canterbury, Epsom and Raunds in 1911.

This week, the highest temperature at a Class 1 site was 35.5 at Rothamsted, in the Hertfordshire countryside just outside the London urban heat bubble.

The heatwave in 1911 was also long lasting, extending from July well into September. It was also exceptionally dry.

I’ll do a full analysis when summer is over. But the summer of 1911 disproves the notion that we did not used to have heatwaves like this year’s in the past.

energy and fields, renewable energy

The Biggest Garbage Heaps in Human History

by P. Driessen, Aug 18,2026 in WUWT

Daily news feeds present applause lines, and numerous movies include framing shots with wind turbines – blatantly or subtly promoting the “inevitable transition” from “dirty” fossil fuels to “low-cost, clean, green, renewable, sustainable” wind and solar power.

Net Zero Green New Deal proponents need to start pondering some immutable realities.

Yes, even modern coal plants emit pollutants, along with plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases.” Gas plants emit CO2 and water vapor.

And yes, wind turbines, solar panels, and vehicle and grid backup batteries have no such emissions – at their point of operation. But they generate massive pollutants in their manufacturing and other stages.

Modern coal, gas, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants operate for 50 years or more. They generate 24/7 and don’t need backup power. A few can electrify entire cities. They’re built mostly from concrete, steel, aluminum and copper, with a few exotic metals and minerals imported from adversarial nations.

They don’t have to be replaced every 20-30 years, as wind and solar generators do. A few thousand suffice. They can be built near urban and industrial centers, instead of hundreds of miles away, connected by long transmission lines.

The more we require that cars, cooking, hot water and home heating systems run on electricity, instead of gasoline or natural gas – and that the electricity come from “renewable” sources – the more wind turbines, solar panels, and backup coal, gas or battery power we need for windless, sunless hours, days and weeks.

The more turbines and panels we install, the more we must put them in increasingly poorer quality areas, the worse they then perform, the less electricity they generate, and the more we need.

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unclassified

Veteran Swiss Meteorologist On Germany’s Recent Heat Wave: “You’re A Really Crazy Country”

by P. Gosselin, Aug 16, 2026 in NoTricksZone  

In an interview on a Bild podcast, Swiss-based meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann strongly criticized Germany’s approach to dealing with heatwaves and climate issues, telling the German audience, “You’re a really crazy country.”

Article here online: nau.ch

Kachelmann told Bild the current European heatwave is unprecedented but that Germany and Switzerland got relatively “lucky” because the core of the heatwave was centered further west over France.

On recommendations on how to deal with heat waves, Kachelmann sharply rejected advice like keeping windows closed during hot daytime hours, arguing that this practice only makes conditions for elderly people in small apartments far more miserable with a higher risk of dying. He criticizes politicians for inconsistency, specifically targeting the Green Party for supporting wood and pellet heating, which he points out is even worse for the climate than burning coal, oil, or gas.

Deep-seated anti-science bias

Kachelmann refered to Germany as a “really crazy country” (“durchgeknalltes Land”) due to what he sees as a deep-seated anti-science bias and cultural superstition surrounding basic cooling methods. For example, one widespread superstition leads Germans to fear drafts flowing across rooms and air conditioning, believing they cause stiff necks or illness, rather than using fans or AC units to save lives during extreme heat.

“Globally speaking, we’re the number one country for superstition. Nowhere else in the world is there so much superstition,” Kachelmann said.

 …
climate-debate

CO2 is Winning (Mitigation fail)

by R. Bratley Jr., Aug 15, 2026 in WUWT

“The future of rational climate policy is adaptation, not mitigation that works against adaptation. Social justice demands that climate policy not increase energy prices and restrict consumer sovereignty.”

Want to prosper in the energy/climate arena? Avoid wasteful, futile climate ‘mitigation’ policy. Want to ruin your economy for no effect on climate? Rush ahead with wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and forced conservation. The UK/EU experience speaks for itself.

Examine the graph below, and ask yourself which economies are prospering and which are retrogressing. The jumps between 2014 and 2024 would be magnified today.

 …
…

The future of rational climate policy is adaptation, not mitigation that works against adaptation. Social justice demands that climate policy not increase energy prices and restrict consumer sovereignty.

Appendix: Prior Adaptation Articles

Adaptation Momentum, Mitigation Fatigue (August 5, 2026)

Global Air Conditioning: Adaptation in Action (July 21, 2026)

Adaptation: Think about It (July 2, 2026)

The Argument for Adaptation and Resilience (Part I: Theory) July 14, 2025

Examples of Adaptation and Resilience (Part II: Examples) July 15, 2025

Climate Adaptation vs. Mitigation Fail (June 12, 2025)

“Resilience and Adaptation”: Mitigation Demotion Ahead? (October 9, 2024)

Adaptation to Heat: Then and Now (May 3, 2024)

On the Climate Train to Destruction? Another View (adaptation, not futile mitigation) August 2, 2023

Adaptation: The Hidden Climate Strategy (May 3, 2021)

Taming Climate Change: Capitalism at Work (market adaptation, not government mitigation) January 5, 2021

Taming Climate Change: Capitalism at Work (market adaptation, not government mitigation) January 5, 2021

better to know...?, climate-debate

Henrik Svensmark fired by his university

by K.I. Dahl-Madsen,  July 21 ,2026 in Clintel.org

 Something unusual and encouraging has happened in Danish climate journalism. Berlingske, one of Denmark’s leading national daily newspapers, has published an excellent and genuinely inquisitive article about the dismissal of physicist Henrik Svensmark from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where he has been working since the late nineties. The headline leaves no room for doubt: “Controversial Danish climate and space researcher has received the pink slip from DTU: It is ‘a death blow’ to my research”.

Here is how the article starts:

He is one of Denmark’s most internationally recognized researchers – and at the same time one of the most controversial. But now space and climate researcher Henrik Svensmark has, in his own words, been “good old-fashioned fired” by his employer, the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in Lyngby. He does not rule out that “political considerations” – as he puts it – were involved in the years-long process that led to his final dismissal. At the same time, Henrik Svensmark does not hesitate to call it “a death blow” to a branch of research that he has largely developed single-handedly and that climate researchers around the world, including the UN’s climate panel (IPCC), have had to relate to – often reluctantly. This is mainly because Svensmark’s research points to what he sees as an overlooked natural factor behind a large part of the climate changes Earth has undergone. He finally does not rule out that the dismissal may be linked to the fact that he is perceived as a controversial researcher in wide circles: “There is nothing controversial about the research itself. But it is true that many perceive my research as controversial, even though it shouldn’t be.” DTU has no comments on the actual dismissal of Svensmark and refers to it as a personnel matter. However, the director of DTU Space, Henning Skriver, confirms that Svensmark’s overarching research area, atmospheric physics, will now “be significantly down-prioritized.”

Science journalist Lars Henrik Aagaard deserves credit for the whole article. Rather than dismissing Svensmark as merely ‘controversial’, he asks the essential question: is DTU retiring an ageing employee, or is it terminating an internationally recognized but scientifically inconvenient research program?

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climate-debate

Methane Emissions From Wildfires: Trends and Anomalies

by Zhu. et al., Aug 8, 2026 in JGRAtmospheres 

Abstract

Wildfires emit smoke particles and trace gases including greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, impacting the environment and leading to detrimental impacts on human health and economy. The estimation of spatially and temporally resolved methane emissions from biomass burning (BB) provides critical information in developing measurement-informed methane inventories. The use of satellite active fire products (fire radiative power) is an effective pathway to investigate wildfire emissions around the world. In this study, the Global BB Emissions Product-eXtended algorithm is employed to estimate long-term temporal variation and geographic distribution of methane emissions from BB using satellite observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. Globally, on average about 19 Megatonnes of BB methane are released to the atmosphere every year, nearly half of it originating from Africa, where BB represents a significant proportion of the total methane emissions. Our findings show that methane emissions from wildfires are substantial and can exceed other source sectors during extreme wildfire events, negating gains from years of emission reductions from anthropogenic sources. The contribution of fires to the methane budget is significant for regions with intense fire activities. Effective wildfire prevention and management could be beneficial to rapidly reduce methane emissions from BB.

better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study Details Massive Recent Sea Ice Expansion And Cooling In The Greenland Sea

by K. Richard, Aug 13, 2026 in NoTricksZone 

Scientists (Yilgan and Jónsdóttir, 2026) report annual mean sea ice extent in the Greenland Sea was 8.4 times greater in 2023 (2,403.6 km²) than in 2019 (287.6 km²).

In the month of January, the sea ice extent was 6.4 times larger in 2024 (20,308 km²) than in 2017 (312 km²).

Hand-in-hand with the recent sea ice expansion, the region has experienced a short-term 1°C cooling from 2016 to 2024.

…

The recent trend for the Greenland Sea appears to be consistent with the trajectory enveloping much of the Arctic since the mid-2000s as reported by England et al., 2025.

“Over the past two decades, Arctic sea ice loss has slowed considerably, with no statistically significant decline in September sea ice area since 2005.”

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Australia, better to know...?, climate-debate

Soon corals may invade all those useless bare patches of sand…

by Jo Nova, Aug 11, 2026 in JoNovaBLog 

The Fact is, after forty years of man made global warming and 1,100 billion tons of CO2 there is better coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef than there was in 1985.

VIDEO in the text, 14min

The ABC hasn’t reported this, so I feel compelled to share the news as a public service. We know if it were “another record low” it would have been the lead story on the 7pm news.

So here we are, yet again — Humans have dumped 1.1 Trillion tons of CO2 into our atmosphere since these comprehensive surveys started and who can tell? That’s over sixty percent of all human CO2 emissions ever, that have been recklessly released since 1985 and there is nothing to show for it in the largest and longest surveys we have of the biggest reef in the world.

“Lucky” the UN didn’t slap an endangerment warning on it isn’t it? Lucky for them.

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…

Misinformation is a government funded industry

Ten years after the corals hit a record low, the Australian Environment Foundation survey showed that half the country didn’t realize the reef has recovered. Only 3% knew the corals were at a record high, and nearly half the Green voters were as wrong as they possibly could be — they thought coral cover was at a record low.

This mass ignorance is not an accident. The ABC cultivates it. But AIMS, the CSIRO and most of our academics stayed silent when they could have spoken up. All around the world right wing governments are being created that are taking an axe to corrupt programs. Will these self-serving institutions wise up and raise their game in time, or will they sink with the Big Bloated Government Team that they nakedly campaign for?

energy and fields

Indonesia and India Are Jointly Planning a Hydrocarbon-Powered Future

by V. Jayaraj, Aug 13, 2026 in WUWT

A millennium ago, India’s Chola Kingdom commanded the seas of Southeast Asia, forming with the Indonesian archipelago deep mercantile and cultural roots and a shared economic destiny that lasted for hundreds of years. In the 21st century, these two giants are again engaging in complementary roles on the global stage.

India is the world’s most populous nation, and Indonesia the fourth. Together, they represent 1.8 billion people intent on basic survival, industrial growth, and ascending the global economic ladder.

Both countries are moving deeper into manufacturing, and both must serve an upwardly mobile middle class. That means more electricity, more refined fuels, more petrochemicals, more steel, more freight, and more industrial heat. It also means more coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power – energy sources that can deliver reliable, affordable power.

he need for fossil fuels took center stage when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto met in Jakarta to forge deeper economic ties July 7. At the top of their agenda sat a massive expansion of energy trade and an Indian request for more Indonesian coal to feed a ravenous power grid.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The UN Green Climate Fund is a wasteful fraud

by D. Wojick, Aug 12, 2026

The UN Green Climate Fund (GCF) is neither Green nor about climate. They are mostly just doing normal foreign aid that the donor countries would be better off doing themselves. They have received and spent over $20 billion to date, with more billions coming.

For example, they fund a lot of water supply systems in dry countries. They call it “climate change adaptation,” but it is not adaptation to climate change. It is addressing a condition that has always existed. It is fraud to call this “climate funding.” The same is true for flood protection in flood-prone areas or improving existing farms, which they also do a lot of.

Moreover, much of this so-called adaptation funding actually increases CO2 emissions, so it is not even green.

A fine example is their biggest funding to date, which is part of the huge Jordan Desalination Project. The GCF says that Jordan is among the world’s driest countries, so it certainly needs water. But Jordan has been this dry throughout its history, so the project has nothing to do with climate change.

Then too, desalination uses lots of electricity, and Jordan’s electric power production is around 70% fossil-fueled, mostly with natural gas. The project includes a token solar facility, but it only covers a small fraction of the 24/7 energy required for desalination and pumping the water up to the users, most of whom are around 1,000 meters higher than the plant.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Cherry-Picking Met Office Drops Declining Wind Speed Chapter From Its Latest Annual Climate Report

by C. Morrison, Aug 12, 2026 in WUWT

Lower UK wind speeds and less powerful storms have always been a bit of a disappointment to activists whipping up a climate crisis frenzy to back the Net Zero fantasy. Going back over 50 years, the data is clear on a declining trend. Of course, despite its lamentable inability to step up to the Net Zero plate, wind is one of the UK’s “essential climate variables”, to quote the Met Office’s own words. Since it first started publishing its annual state of the UK climate report, the climatic performance of wind and storms have had their own dedicated chapter. Alas, no more. The 2025 report, published last month, has abolished the chapter – wind it seems is now little more than a footnote. Should do better, some might comment.

However hard one tries to regard the Met Office as a sound independent science body, its obvious Net Zero promotion constantly gets in the way. “Embarrassingly duped by activists” was Matt Ridley’s recent verdict and it is difficult to disagree. How it can justify abolishing wind is almost beyond comprehension. It doesn’t take a particularly cynical nature to suggest the ever-expanding chapter on temperatures is unlikely to disappear in future editions.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Les catastrophes naturelles, notamment climatiques, sont moins nombreuses

by Ph. Delsol, 11 août 2026 in Contrepoint.org

Nous avions déjà noté qu’après une baisse de 8 % en 2025, les tarifs de la réassurance avaient chuté de plus de 14 % lors des renouvellements du mois de janvier 2026, notamment du fait de sinistres climatiques moins importants. Le premier semestre 2026 confirme la baisse significative de la sinistralité climatique. Les principaux acteurs mondiaux de la réassurance, particulièrement Munich Re et Swiss Re, enregistrent de ce fait des résultats en forte hausse. Et lors des renouvellements des contrats en juillet 2026, les prix de la réassurance ont encore reculé de 5,5% (cf. Les Echos du 10 août 2026).

Néanmoins la gauche qui a fait son fonds de commerce de l’écologie punitive continue d’alimenter un discours catastrophiste. « Les sinistres se multiplient, les coûts explosent » entend-on sur France Culture le 29 juillet. Sur RMC, ce 6 août, Jean-Philippe Dogneton, directeur général de la Macif, considère que nous vivons une « époque qui s’aggrave sur le plan climatique ». Certes, les incendies sont cette année d’une ampleur inédite. Mais il faut moins en accuser le dérèglement climatique que l’impéritie de l’Etat qui, faute de moyens et de volonté, laisse prospérer la criminalité, à laquelle semble-t-il tant de feux sont dus, et s’est révélé incapable de mieux anticiper et notamment d’équiper les corps de pompiers de suffisamment de Canadair, ou équivalents.

Plutôt que de vouloir changer le climat, peut-être faudrait-il apprendre à s’y adapter et à vivre avec la chaleur comme beaucoup de pays le font depuis longtemps.

climate-debate

Another New Study Links Modern And Past Global Warming To Natural Changes In Cloud Clover, Not CO2

by K. Richard, Aug 12, 2026  in NoTricksZone

Cloud cover changes are a “top-down dynamical driver” of Earth’s climate.

A July 2026 Environmental Research Letters paper authored by Bellocchi et al.attributes ~80% of the rise in Earth’s absorbed solar radiation since 2000 to declining high-reflectivity cloud cover, primarily from circulation-driven contraction of storm-cloud zones.

The study highlights the climate’s “albedo governance,” suggesting a 1% shift in Earth’s albedo corresponds to a 1°C surface temperature change.

With more cloud cover, more solar radiation is reflected and the surface cools. With declining cloud albedo, which has been observed since 1980, less solar radiation is reflected and the surface warms.

Cloud cover changes are driven by natural atmospheric circulation modes and internal variability. This is supported by reconstruction data showing cloud cover decline has for centuries occurred independently from “greenhouse-gas forcing.”

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climate and geology

Enhanced marine burial of terrestrial organic carbon through the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum

by G.N.Inglis et al., June 16, 2026, Nature OPEN ACCESS

Abstract

The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) occurred ~56 million years ago and was characterized by large-scale carbon release and transient warming. Erosion and subsequent burial of terrestrial organic carbon in marine sediments could have sequestered organic carbon during the PETM—stabilizing global carbon and climate systems—yet direct evidence for this process is lacking. Here we present source-specific biomarker records from five globally distributed shallow marine sites and show that vascular plant and soil organic carbon contributed ~40–95% of total organic carbon in coastal sediments during the PETM. This is higher than modern marine sediments (~12–20% of total organic carbon) and indicates greater terrestrial organic carbon delivery to marine environments during warmer climates. We find that terrestrial organic carbon burial fluxes can increase ~10-to-50-fold during the PETM due to enhanced physical erosion and higher coastal sedimentation rates, implying that marine burial of terrestrial organic carbon sequestered excess carbon released during the PETM. Palaeoclimate model simulations do not account for enhanced delivery of terrestrial organic carbon into the marine realm and are thus missing an important carbon sink. Terrestrial organic carbon burial could act as a negative feedback during other hyperthermals and may aid the long-term (>10,000-year) recovery of the Earth syste

better to know...?

Defining Temperature

by A. May, Aug 9, 2026 in WUWT

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Local temperature

This is the temperature used in climate and meteorological studies. It is the foundation of heat conduction, and hydrodynamics. One assumes local thermodynamic equilibrium over some volume and measures or assumes a local temperature for the volume. This is the logic used in the famous Navier-Stokes equations. This assumed “local equilibrium” is valid over small volumes (for example an “air parcel”) for short time periods. The problem with some climate models is that they assume “local equilibrium” for volumes and time periods that are too large and too long.

Discussion

Temperature is not a primitive mechanical property like mass; it is an emergent statistical property that characterizes the distribution of energy among degrees of freedom (Landau & Lifshitz, 1980). Mass can be measured independently of the rest of the universe or system and does not change as the system around it changes. Temperature follows from the 0th law of thermodynamics, which says:

If system A is in thermal equilibrium with system B,

and system B is in thermal equilibrium with system C,

then A is in thermal equilibrium with C.

The 0th law establishes that “temperature” is a meaningful physical quantity because thermal equilibrium is transitive. It does not define temperature, but it guarantees that temperature is meaningful and measurable. We often hear that temperature is transitive, but this is only true in laboratory settings or at equilibrium. Outside equilibrium, temperature can lose transitivity and different degrees of freedom can produce different temperatures. Transitivity is the basis of equilibrium temperature, but not all temperature measurements.

In summary, the thermodynamic definition of temperature applies only to equilibrium states, but physics uses many other temperature concepts like kinetic, effective, local, and generalized that are essential for describing real systems far from equilibrium. Restricting “temperature” to its equilibrium definition ignores the vast range of physical systems where temperature is well-defined and indispensable.

climate-debate

No, ScienceDaily, Data Show No ‘Sharp Acceleration’ in Warming

by A. Watts, 7 aug, 2026 in WUWT

ScienceDaily’s article, “Scientists detect a sharp acceleration in global warming,” promotes a new Geophysical Research Letters paper claiming that global warming has entered “a faster gear” since about 2015. This is false.  The authors argue that after statistically removing the effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar variability from five global surface temperature datasets, they detect a statistically significant acceleration in warming of about 0.35°C per decade over the past 10 years. But historical temperature data show a much different picture.

There is no convincing evidence that Earth’s warming has suddenly accelerated. Instead, this appears to be an exercise in statistical manipulation built upon climate modeling assumptions, presented as though it were an observational discovery.

And there’s advocacy behind the paper too, as evidenced by this quote from the paper’s co-author, climate science blogger Stefan Rahmstorf:

If the warming rate of the past 10 years continues, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement before 2030. How quickly the Earth continues to warm ultimately depends on how rapidly we reduce global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels to zero.

Science and advocacy are not a convincing combination.

The paper does not report the discovery of a new measurement. It takes existing surface temperature records, applies a statistical procedure designed to subtract what the authors consider “noise” from El Niño, volcanic aerosols, and solar variability, and then analyzes the adjusted temperatures for an acceleration signal.

In other words, the claimed acceleration appears only after the authors modify the observations. ScienceDaily presents this as though scientists have discovered a new physical phenomenon. They haven’t. They have created a new statistical product.

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La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse