The Next El Niño Could Lock Earth Into a Hotter Climate - Inside Climate News
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25042026/el-nino-earth-warming/

Even a moderately strong El Niño during the next 12 to 18 months could drive the average global temperature to about 1.7 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level, climate scientist James Hansen told Inside Climate News. Hansen doubts the world will meaningfully cool back down to below the 1.5 degree Celsius mark after the El Niño fades.

Climate impacts amplified by strong El Niños keep hitting the same vulnerable regions, may be more widespread than previously thought and can persist long after the tropical Pacific cools, according to an El Niño study published December 2025 in Nature Communications.

The study concluded that “super El Niños” are not just passing weather events, but more like climate shocks that can push parts of the Earth system into new states, co-author Jong-Seong Kug wrote in an email.

The study’s definition of a super El Niño is when the sea surface temperature anomaly in the tropical Pacific “exceeds 2 standard deviations above normal”—not an ordinary fluctuation, but more of a systemic warning sign.

The impacts are clustered in areas known to be sensitive to long-distance climate connections and regions “that are already prone to climate regime shifts,” wrote Kug, a climate researcher at Seoul National University in South Korea.

There are only three super El Niños on record: in 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16. All of them contributed to regime shifts in regional ocean temperatures, leading to unprecedented marine heat waves that destroyed or damaged coral reefs and caused mass die-offs and starvation among many marine organisms, from starfish to seabirds and marine mammals.

Those impacts, as well as changes in drought and extreme heat over land areas, persisted for years and could shift some regional patterns for decades, according to the study.

The Nordic heatwave that pushed temperatures above 30C (86F) in the Arctic Circle in July was part of a record-breaking year that saw abnormal heat sear more than 95% of Europe, a report has found.

Parts of Scandinavia were scorched last summer by 21 days of punishingly hot weather that led to “tropical nights” in typically cool countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland, according to a scientific report campaigners said showed “all the emergency warning lights are flashing red”.

The scientists found temperatures in Europe have risen by 0.56C per decade since the mid-1990s – faster than any other continent on the planet

Nordic heatwave part of record year that saw temperatures scorch most of Europe, report finds | Extreme heat | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/29/nordic-extreme-heat-environment-europe-report

adaptace v plnem proudu

‘Kokushobi’ will be used in weather forecasts to warn that extreme heat is on the way.
Japan now has a special name for days that are 40C or hotter.
‘Kokushobi’ translates as cruelly hot, brutally hot or severely hot. The name won a public vote, with ‘chōmōshobi’, meaning super extremely hot day, coming in second place.

Guest post: How declining cloudiness is accelerating global warming - Carbon Brief
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-declining-cloudiness-is-accelerating-global-warming/

“For the past two decades, low-level cloud cover has been declining, increasing the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth and amplifying global warming.

As global temperatures have reached record highs in recent years, there has been concern that the decline in cloudiness may be enhancing warming more than previously expected.

In a new study, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Letters, we investigate how the decline in global cloudiness affects the Earth’s “energy imbalance” – the difference between absorbed solar energy and heat radiated into space that results in global warming.

This imbalance has more than doubled over the past 20 years, as greenhouse gases have trapped more heat in the atmosphere.

We find that, since 2003, the decrease of cloudiness has been responsible for half of the increase of Earth’s energy imbalance.”

P Worms
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AmdTujaWZ/

There's been much discussion of the impact on energy systems of the closure of the Persian Gulf, but rather less than I would have expected of the - to my mind - more alarming impact on several kinds of fertiliser and other feedstocks of the global food system. Without going into details, modelling suggests that will throw several hundred million more people into food insecurity.

Crops need fertility to grow, and in the usual industrial farming systems that dominate the planet, those fertilisers must come from fossil fuels (my tribe of agroecologists has long shown that different production systems can generate more food while damaging soil and biodiversity less with only a fraction of those inputs, yet here we are - the reasons why is a discussion for another day). But plants also need water, and here this year, the problems linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz risk being compounded by a phenomenon called El Niño. This redistributes heat from the Western to the eastern Pacific that is then released to the atmosphere, creating a warming pulse that leads to drought conditions across much of the world and weaker monsoons in places like India.

On top of that, there is rising evidence that the climate forcing - i.e. the amount of global heating we get from a doubling of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere - has been seriously underestimated over the past decades: instead of being about 2-3°C, it's more in the region of 4-5°C (the paper i'm sharing here details the reasons).

That higher forcing is a problem for the medium term.. But in the short term, the climate system through El Niño willi amplify the horrors about to be unleashed on the food system by Trump’s war of choice.


Super El Nino? Super Warming is the Main Issue.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/super-el-nino-super-warming-is-the

but... robots&datacenters

Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature
https://actuaries.org.uk/planetary-solvency

The global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090, unless immediate policy action on risks posed by the climate crisis is taken. Populations are already impacted by food system shocks, water insecurity, heat stress and infectious diseases. If unchecked, mass mortality, mass displacement, severe economic contraction and conflict become more likely.

‘Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature’ is the IFoA’s fourth report in collaboration with climate scientists. The report develops a framework for global risk management to address these risks and show how this approach can support future prosperity. It also shows how a lack of realistic risk messaging to guide policy decisions has led to slower action than is needed.

The report proposes a novel Planetary Solvency risk dashboard, to provide decision-useful risk information to support policymakers to drive human activity within the finite bounds of the planet that we live on.

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds | Climate crisis | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/06/humanity-heating-planet-faster-than-ever-before-study-finds

global heating accelerated from a steady rate of less than 0.2C per decade between 1970 and 2015 to about 0.35C per decade over the past 10 years. The rate is higher than scientists have seen since they started systematically taking the Earth’s temperature in 1880.

“If the warming rate of the past 10 years continues, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the 1.5C (2.7F) limit of the Paris agreement before 2030,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the study.

Extreme heat in recent years has been pushed higher by natural fluctuations – such as solar cycles, volcanic eruptions, and the weather pattern El Niño – that have led scientists to question whether startling temperature readings are outliers or the result of an increase in global heating.

The researchers applied a noise-reduction method to filter out the estimated effect of nonhuman factors in five major datasets that scientists have compiled to gauge the Earth’s temperature. In each of them, they found an acceleration in global heating emerged in 2013 or 2014.

How Ukraine Is Turning to Renewables to Keep Heat and Lights On
Russia continues to bomb Ukraine’s fossil-fueled power plants, leaving much of the nation shivering during a brutal winter. But Ukraine’s new emphasis on developing decentralized power — from solar panels to wind turbines — is advancing an unexpected green energy transition.
How Ukraine Is Turning to Renewables to Keep Heat and Lights On - Yale E360
https://e360.yale.edu/features/ukraine-war-renewable-energy

Spain and Portugal brace for more floods
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/climate/article/2026/02/07/spain-and-portugal-brace-for-more-floods_6750251_96.html

Spain and Portugal on Saturday, February 7, faced fresh storms and torrential rain just days after floods caused by Storm Leonardo proved fatal in both countries and caused significant damage. In Portugal, the latest depression – christened Storm Marta – has prompted the deployment of more than 26,500 rescuers and led three municipalities to postpone a presidential vote by a week, which was scheduled for Sunday.

The Iberian Peninsula is on the front lines of climate change in Europe. It has been experiencing increasingly prolonged heat waves and more frequent, intense episodes of heavy rainfall for several years. Both Spain and Portugal have issued warnings over potential fresh floods, after inundations that have blocked hundreds of roads, disrupted trains and forced thousands to evacuate from the rising waters.

In Spain, much of the south, particularly the region of Andalusia, was placed on orange alert on Saturday, as was the north-west, which was facing heavy rain and violent storms. "We have never seen such a series of storms," said Andalusia's regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno, describing the situation as "complex" with dozens of roads cut off, rail traffic largely suspended, and a total of "more than 11,000 people" evacuated.

He said the farming sector was badly hit, adding it would cost over 500 million euros ($590 million) to repair roads. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez held a crisis meeting on Saturday, a day after visiting flood-affected areas. Evacuated from Grazalema, one of the hardest-hit municipalities in Andalusia, residents were taken in at a gymnasium in the city of Ronda.

Scientists call for urgent action as dangerous amoebas spread globally | ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260124003856.htm

Scientists are warning that a little-known group of microbes called free-living amoebae may pose a growing global health threat. Found in soil and water, some species can survive extreme heat, chlorine, and even modern water systems—conditions that kill most germs. One infamous example, the “brain-eating amoeba,” can cause deadly infections after contaminated water enters the nose. Even more concerning, these amoebae can act as hiding places for dangerous bacteria and viruses, helping them evade disinfection and spread

Environmental and public health researchers are drawing attention to a little-known group of pathogens that may pose a rising global danger: free living amoebae. In a new perspective published in Biocontaminant, the team explains that these microscopic organisms are gaining ground worldwide, driven by climate change, deteriorating water systems, and limited monitoring and detection efforts.

A huge heat dome is set to sit over parts of NSW & Victoria next week, baking the regions. Some places will see 49°C (120°F) — utterly insane temperatures. That is not sustainable for long without air conditioning. Expect major stress on infrastructure & ecosystems

https://x.com/i/status/2014652344554635412

TADEAS: aneb naznaky klimatickeho povstani, pro mainstream levicova anarchie.


We can no longer afford the rich.
We can initiate the end of the imperial lifestyle.
We can stop the plundering of the Earth.
In the greed for energy, the Earth is being drained, sucked dry, burned, abused, razed, raped, and destroyed. Entire regions are rendered uninhabitable by the heat. They simply burn up. Or habitats disappear beneath the waves during floods or due to rising sea levels.
Shutting down fossil fuel power plants is a task that can be accomplished by hand. Have courage.
We know we must interrupt this destruction. We know we are not alone. Don't give up hope for a world where life has space, not the greed for money, power, and destruction.

...

Last year, the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere rose to 423.9 parts per million, a value that surpasses all previous records. At the same time, climate scientists agree that the massive transatlantic ocean currents will collapse sooner or later due to global warming. This collapse of ocean currents, which has so far afforded the North a mild climate, is only one part of the catastrophe that awaits us. The extent of this devastation is simply ignored, abstracted, and discussed at global climate conferences until the scale of the destruction disappears into tables and declarations of intent.
But the insatiable hunger for energy is eating its way through the Earth's crust and our lives, among other things to feed artificial intelligence, which then spouts stereotypes and absurdities, confusing, disorienting, and/or manipulating us. Meanwhile, with each new "learning" of the AI ​​using previous data, language, expression, and vitality are increasingly reduced, mutilated, and limited.

...

We don't claim to know the way out. But we do know we must stop this destruction. Hedonism can no longer hold us captive once we've tasted the sweat of fear that spreads when there's no way out. No going forward, no going back. Only the horror of where we, as humanity, have ended up. When the question falls back on us, what did you actually do to prevent what was coming? You saw it coming, the survivors, the next generations, ask us. Please don't bring up the political parties. Please don't bring up the brown-shirted alternatives in pinstriped suits and dresses. And not the Greens or the Left either. Don't bring up the economy, whose free market will supposedly solve the problem. Economics and politics deal with death every day. With dictatorships and butchers. Their concerns vanish into thin air when it comes to satisfying our energy needs, for example. Russia is still supplying gas to Europe via Nord Stream 1. And the US wants Venezuela's oil. That's why military attacks are now taking place. And fracked gas arrives by ship from all over the world. Currently, 79% comes from the USA! Fracking is extremely environmentally damaging in its production. Even during extraction, a methane loss of 6 to 10 percent is assumed, which further warms the atmosphere.

95% of the gas burned in Germany is imported. At climate summits, only tactical lip service is forthcoming because the oil-producing countries are not interested in climate protection but in money. Because the major cities base their policies on money and growth, lobbyists in Europe are being handed the end of the combustion engine phase-out.

For example, the German Minister of Economic Affairs, Katharina Reiche, was State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport, a lobbyist for the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKM), and a manager at the E.ON subsidiary Westenergie. Minister Reiche presents herself as a supporter of hydrogen but primarily relies on natural gas. She intends to issue tenders for additional gas-fired power plants with a capacity of 10 gigawatts, which are to be connected to the grid by 2031, corresponding to approximately 25 new power plants. 20 billion euros are earmarked for these new gas-fired power plants.

Reiche would prefer to postpone Germany's climate neutrality target from 2045 to 2050 anyway.

The main culprits behind human-induced climate destruction are not those who suffer the most, those who pay with their health and their lives. The people of the Global South are already paying the highest price. The countries of the Global North, and soon China among others, are deciding the fate of everyone. China, as a communist, racist, and patriarchal dictatorship, can use "rare earth elements" to blackmail countries that don't toe the line, gradually weaving countries, cultures, and political systems into the cocoon of this new dictatorial world power. Over 85% of the world's refined "rare earth elements" come from China. And it is the rich who are the problem. It is the super-rich who are setting the world ablaze. In the East, in the West, in the South, and in the North. Sixty percent of the super-rich's investments worldwide go into gas and oil. And around 300 super-rich countries emit more CO₂ than the 110 poorest countries in the world. These criminals know it. They don't care. Their greed for even more wealth and power sets the standard by which everyone else follows