Showing posts with label heat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heat. Show all posts

Monday, December 1, 2025

The next El Nino

Arctic sea ice 

Arctic sea ice volume is at a record daily low. It has been at a record daily low for well over a year. The image below shows Arctic sea ice volume through December 13, 2025. 


The image below shows that the November 2025 Arctic sea ice volume was the lowest on record for the month of November. 
The image below, adapted from an Eliot Jacobson image, shows the annual minima of Arctic sea ice thickness through 2025.


The image below shows that the Arctic sea ice extent was at a record daily low on December 12, 2025. 


Loss of sea ice extent means that less sunlight gets reflected back into space and instead gets absorbed by the sea surface, resulting in higher temperatures, in a self-amplifying feedback loop.

The image on the right shows Arctic snow cover and sea ice concentration on December 13, 2025.

Furthermore, loss of Arctic sea ice volume can contribute to a huge rise in temperature as a result of methane erupting from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. As Arctic sea ice shrinks in volume, its capacity shrinks to act as a buffer that consumes ocean heat entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean. As the buffer disappears, the temperature of the water can rise strongly and abruptly, causing heat to penetrate sediments that contain huge amounts of methane in the form of hydrates and free gas underneath hydrates. Heat penetrating such sediments can destabilize such hydrates, resulting in huge eruptions of methane. 

Such an event could be triggered by wild weather swings resulting from higher temperatures that come with the next El Niño that is likely to emerge and strengthen in the course of the year 2026. 

Global sea ice

The image below shows that the global sea ice extent was 3.2 million km² lower than 1981-2010 on December 15, 2025, the second lowest on record for the time of year and a deviation from 1981-2010 of -3.9σ.

Antarctic sea ice

The image below shows Antarctic sea ice extent anomalies from January 1979 through December 12, 2025. Satellite data are from NSIDC, DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS and JAXA AMSR2. Anomalies are calculated using a 5-day running mean from a 1981-2010 base. 


   [ Saltier water, less sea ice. From earlier post. ]
The above image shows that the Antarctic sea ice extent anomaly remained relatively stable for many years, but gradually increased during the period from 2007 to 2015. 

This increase can be attributed to rising temperatures from 2007 resulting in stronger wind spreading the sea ice and stronger evaporation of water from the Southern Ocean coming with increased snowfall on top of the sea ice accompanied by increased meltwater, which initially lowered salinity of the sea surface, enabling sea ice to spread wide. 

Meanwhile, stronger evaporation of water from the Southern Ocean also increased snowfall over Antarctica, where a significant part of the snow has remained on top of the snow cover.

Eventually, in 2015, this and rising temperatures started to overwhelm the earlier impact and increasingly stronger evaporation of water from the Southern Ocean started to contribute to make the sea surface more salty, resulting in more rapid melting of the sea ice. 

This is illustrated by the forecast for December 28, 2025, of the precipitable water standardized anomaly (1979-2000 baseline) on the right. 
It is further illustrated by the image on the right that shows a forecast for December 29, 2025, of the precipitable water standardized anomaly (1979-2000 baseline). 

The image below shows a forecast for December 28, 2025, of the global precipitablewater anomaly (1979-2000 baseline). 

This is a self-amplifying feedback, in that saltier water at the ocean surface also draws up more heat from the deep ocean, making it harder for sea ice to regrow. Increasing amounts of heat and CO₂ that were previously stored in the deep ocean by sinking circumpolar waters, threaten to instead remain at the surface and cause both atmospheric temperatures and CO₂ concentrations to rise. 

Many of these feedbacks such as changes in salinity and stratification have been discussed in earlier post such as this one.


The increase in snowfall on Antarctica is also illustrated by the image below that shows the accumulated precipitation anomaly (in percentage, versus 1951-1980) for the 12-month period from December 2024 through November 2025 (ECMWF ERA5 Data, adapted from ClimateReanalyzer.org. 


A study led by Alessandro Silvano (2025) shows that, over the years, the Southern Ocean surface has become more hot and salty.

The combined impact of these feedbacks can accumulate and strike rapidly. Feedbacks include the impact of sea ice decline (latent heat buffer loss + albedo loss), of the water vapor feedback, of increased stratification and salinity of the sea surface of the Southern Ocean, of heat entering the atmosphere from the ocean and of less heat getting transferred from the air to the depths of the ocean, and - as temperature rise - of triggering additional feedbacks such as loss of lower clouds and thus additionally causing more heat to be absorbed by the surface as less sunlight is getting reflected back into space.

[ from earlier post ]
Oceans are still absorbing an estimated 91% of the excess heat energy trapped in the Earth's climate system due to human-caused global warming. If just a small part of that heat instead remains in the atmosphere, this could constitute a huge rise in air temperature. Heat already stored in the deeper layers of the ocean could also rise up and commit Earth to further additional surface warming in the future.

Polar amplification of the temperature rise narrows the temperature difference between the Equator and the poles, resulting in a relative slowdown in speed at which heat flows from the Equator to the poles.

This slowdown impacts ocean currents and wind patterns, resulting in slowing down of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and of ocean currents around Antarctica that carry heat to the deep ocean, as well as in deformation of the Jet Stream.

As illustrated by the combination image below, surface temperatures of the sea around Antarctica off the coast of Wilkes Land were as high as 1.9°C or 35.4°F on December 16, 2025 (at the green circle, globe right), an anomaly of 3.1°C or 5.5°F (at the circle, globe left). 


Sea ice cannot survive such high temperatures for long. The higher the water's salt content, the lower its melting point. Sea ice starts melting as soon as the temperature rises to -1.8°C (28.76°F), while freshwater remains frozen as long as the temperature stays below 0°C (32°F). In very salty water, sea ice will start melting at sea surface temperatures of -2°C (28.4°F). Seawater typically has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 grams of salt per liter of water). 

As illustrated by the image below, the air temperature was -1.2°C or 29.8°F off the coast of Wilkes Land, Antarctica (green circle), on December 14, 2025 (03:00 UTC).


Both sea ice extent and concentration are currently low at both poles, contributing to high temperatures, since less sunlight gets reflected back into space and is instead absorbed by the surface. This spells bad news for Antarctic sea ice, which is expected to reach its minimum in February 2026.

The image on the right shows Antarctic snow cover and sea ice concentration on December 14, 2025, adapted from ClimateReanalyzer.

An Antarctic Blue Ocean Event (sea ice approaching a low of one million km²) threatens to occur in February 2026, with the danger that this will in turn trigger an Arctic Blue Ocean Event later in 2026.

The combination image below shows the Antarctic sea ice concentration on December 14, 2025, by the University of Bremen (left) and by NSIDC (right). The NSIDC image also shows the median Antarctic sea ice edge 1981-2010 highlighted in orange. 

The image below shows Antarctic sea ice thickness on December 15, 2025. 

The next El Niño

[ click on images to enlarge ]
The image on the right shows a NOAA update of Niño-3.4 region temperature anomalies and forecasts. NOAA considers La Niña conditions to occur when a one-month negative sea surface temperature anomaly of -0.5° C or less is observed in the Niño-3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific Ocean (5°N-5°S, 120°W-170°W). Also, there must be an expectation that the 3-month Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) threshold will be met, and an atmospheric response typically associated with La Niña is observed over the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These anomalies must also be forecasted to persist for 3 consecutive months. 

The image on the right, adapted from NOAA, shows ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) probabilities, with El Niño (red bar) emerging in the course of 2026. 

The image below, adapted from ECMWF, shows the ENSO anomalies and forecasts for developments through November 2026 in Niño3.4 (left panel) and in Niño1+2 (right panel), indicating that the next El Niño will emerge and strengthen in the course of 2026.


Moving from the depth of a La Niña to the peak of a strong El Niño in itself can make a difference in the global temperature of more than 0.5°C, as discussed in an earlier post.

Methane

The methane danger is illustrated by the image below that shows hourly average in situ methane measurements well above 2400 ppb (parts per billion). The image is adapted from an image issued by NOAA December 13, 2025. The image shows methane recorded over the past few years at the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (BRW), a NOAA facility located near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, at 71.32 degrees North latitude.



The methane danger is discussed in many earlier posts such as this one. Seafloor methane and methane from thawing terrestrial permafrost can add significantly and abruptly to the temperature rise.  

Temperature rise

The image below shows the November 2025 temperature anomaly versus 1951-1980, based on ERA5 data. 


The Land-Only temperature anomaly versus 1880-1920 through November 2025 shows 1.5°C crossed for most months since 2022 (black squares). The Lowess 3-year smoothing trend (red line) indicates that the 2°C threshold was crossed in 2023 and that 3°C may get crossed in 2030 if this trend continues (dashed extension).


Sure, the 1880-1920 base used in above image is not pre-industrial. An even more scary picture emerges when calculating the NASA Land Only temperature anomalies with respect to 1880-1890 (not pre-industrial) through November 2025, as done in the image below, which shows the 1.5°C threshold crossed for all months since 2022 (black squares). The Lowess 3-year smoothing trend (red line) indicates that the 2°C threshold was crossed in 2022 and that 3°C may get crossed in 2028 if this trend continues (dashed extension). 



Notes:
• Land-only? Using land-only anomalies is important, since most people do live on land in the Northern Hemisphere. When calculating the anomaly for the Northern Hemisphere on land only, the anomaly will be even higher. The two images below show a 0.5°C difference between the global anomaly and the anomaly in the Northern Hemisphere for the November 2025 anomaly.
• 1880-1890 base? The 1880-1890 base is not pre-industrial, yet it is more illustrative than NASA's default 1951-1980; when using a genuinely pre-industrial base, temperature anomalies are likely to be even higher (see also the boxes on the image below). 
• Red dashed line stops in 2028? The red dashed line stops in 2028 as it points at 3°C (top dotted line) crossed in 2028, which is an important threshold as humans will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise, as discussed in an earlier post.  
• Lowess trend? The Lowess trend is used by NASA by default. The dashed red line is a linear extension of the Lowess trend and points at 3°C threshold crossed in 2028, but a non-linear trend and its extension may point at an even earlier year (see also this comment).  
• NASA image? The background image is a screenshot of an image custom-made at data.giss.nasa.gov by Sam Carana; the blue textbox and the dashed and dotted lines are added for clarity.
• Timeline from 2022 to 2030? The timeline starts at 2022 as the image shows the 1.5°C threshold (bottom dotted line) to be crossed for all months since 2022 (black squares) and the Lowess 3-year smoothing trend (red line) indicates that the 2°C threshold (middle dotted line) was crossed in 2022. The timeline stops at 2030, as many politicians plan for emissions by people to continue to 2030 (and beyond), even though there may be no humans left by then, as the image illustrates. 
• La Niña/El Niño? While the 2025 anomalies were reached in the absence of El Niño conditions elevating temperatures, the next El Niño may emerge in the course of 2026 (see above).

The November 2025 temperature anomaly was 1.32°C higher than 1951-1980. The anomaly would be significantly higher when calculated from 1850-1900 (the period typically used by the IPCC as base), and even higher when calculated from a genuinely pre-industrial base. 

[ update of image from earlier post, click on images to enlarge ]

The Northern Hemisphere November 2025 temperature anomaly was 1.82°C higher than 1951-1980, and 0.5°C higher than the global anomaly, as illustrated by the image below.  

The above images also include boxes with a diagram and associated text from an earlier post, with more details regarding the size of the historic temperature rise and of the rise to come soon. 

Clearly, the Northern Hemisphere Land Only temperature anomaly is a lot higher than the global temperature anomaly, which is important since most people live on land in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Climate Emergency Declaration

UN secretary-general António Guterres recently spoke about the need for “a credible global response plan to get us on track” regarding the international goal of limiting the global temperature rise. “The science demands action, the law commands it,” Guterres said, in reference to a recent international court of justice ruling. “The economics compel it and people are calling for it.”

The image below illustrates the schism between the Climate Plan and the Status Quo. 


What could be added is that the situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as this 2022 post and this one and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.


Links

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice thickness and volume

• ClimateReanalyzer.org

• nullschool.net

• NOAA - National Centers for Environmental Prediction

• NOAA - Climate Prediction Center - EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) 

• ECMWF

• Zach Labe - Antarctic sea ice extent and concentration 

• Saltier water, less sea ice

• The danger of abrupt eruptions of seafloor methane

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Data Visualisation - flask and station methane measurements
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv

• NASA - GISS Surface Temperature Analysis - custom plots
• When Will We Die?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html






Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Heat Stress in the US

Wet bulb globe temperatures as high as 93°F or 34°C are forecast for July 28, 2025 18:00 UTC.

[ Wet bulb globe temperature forecast ]
The above image, adapted from NOAA National Weather Service, shows extreme heat stress for a large part of the U.S. (inset), with a location in Florida highlighted on the main image.  
The forecast for this location is:
[ Extreme heat stress ]
- Wet bulb globe temperature : 93°F or 34°C
- Temperature : 100°F or 38°C
- Apparent Temperature : 116°F or 47°C
- Dew Point : 77°F or 25°C
- Relative Humidity : 50%
- Forecast for : July 28, 2025 18:00 UTC

The image on the right is a same-day forecast for July 28, 2025 18:00 UTC, showing wet bulb globe temperatures as high as 93°F forecast for eight locations on the US East Coast (North and South Carolina and top part of Georgia). 

Heat stress

Heat stress is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, as illustrated by the image below (credit: National Weather Service).


Numbers of heat fatalities may be conservative. Research finds that where heat is being listed as an official cause of death, this likely underestimates the full toll of these events. Extreme heat can trigger heart attacks and strokes. In addition, some heart disease risk factors, such as diabetes—as well as heart medications, such as diuretics and beta blockers—can affect a person’s ability to regulate their body temperature and make it difficult to handle extreme heat. The study finds that extreme heat accounted for about 600-700 additional deaths from cardiovascular disease annually. A study estimates that extreme heat accounted for 12,000 premature deaths in the contiguous U.S. from 2000 to 2010, and an analysis calculates that the summer 2022 heatwave killed 61,000 people in Europe alone.

Wet-bulb temperature

The human body can cool itself by sweating and the stronger the wind, the more one can cool off by sweating. As temperatures and humidity levels keep rising, a threshold can be reached where the wind factor no longer matters, in the sense that wind can no longer provide cooling. This physiological limit was long described as a 35°C wet-bulb temperature. i.e. once the wet-bulb temperature reaches 35°C, one can no longer lose heat by perspiration, even in strong wind, but instead the human body will start gaining heat from the air beyond a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C.

Accordingly, a 35°C wet-bulb temperature (equal to 95°F at 100% humidity or 115°F at 50% humidity) was long seen as the theoretical limit, the maximum a human could endure. A 2020 study (by Raymond et al.) warns that this limit could be regularly exceeded with a temperature rise of less than 2.5°C (compared to pre-industrial). A 2022 study (by Vecellio et al.) finds that the actual limit is lower — about 31°C wet-bulb or 87°F at 100% humidity — even for young, healthy subjects. The temperature for older populations, who are more vulnerable to heat, is likely even lower. In practice the limit will typically be lower and depending on circumstances could be as low as a wet-bulb temperature of 25°C.

High temperatures

The image below shows an image, adapted from Climate Reanalyzer, with maximum temperatures forecast as high as 109°F for the three days from July 26, 2025.

[ maximum three-day temperature forecast ]
The image below is adapted from NOAA. 

[ Maximum daily heat index forecast ]

A 96°F or 36°C temperature is forecast for a location near Jackson, Mississippi, US, for July 30, 2025, 18:00 UTC. At a relative humidity of 64%, this corresponds with a wet bulb globe temperature of 94°F or 34°C and a 'feels like' temperature of 121°F or 49°C, as illustrated by the image below.


A 102°F or 39°C temperature is forecast for a location near Texarkana, Arkansas, US, for July 31, 2025, 18:00 UTC. At a relative humidity of 47%, this corresponds with a wet bulb globe temperature of 94°F or 34°C and a 'feels like' temperature of 119°F or 48°C, as illustrated by the image below.


A 116°F or 47°C temperature is forecast for a location at Needles, California, US, for August 7, 2025, 00:00 UTC. At a relative humidity of 18%, this corresponds with a wet bulb globe temperature of 93°F or 34°C and a 'feels like' temperature of 121°F or 49°C, as illustrated by the image below.


The above forecasts illustrate the huge difference that the relative humidity percentage can make.   

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.


Links

• NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), National Weather Service
https://digital.weather.gov

• NOAA - heat risk graphics
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatrisk/graphics

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• NOAA Weather Prediction Center, Day 3-7 Heat Index Forecast
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatindex/heatindex.php

• High feels like temperature forecast (2024) 
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Could Earth Reach an 18°C Rise by December 2026?

An analysis by Bob Cohen with Grok 3

Sam Carana’s Arctic News blog posits a potential 18°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels by December 2026, driven by ten amplifying mechanisms—ENSO shifts, sunspot peaks, aerosol decline, albedo loss, permafrost thaw, methane eruptions, clouds tipping, ocean heat anomalies, fluorinated gases, and wildfires.

Prompted by this, I queried Grok 3 (xAI) to model the trajectory and impacts, integrating Kris Van Steenbergen’s February 25, 2025, observation: the Northern Hemisphere (NH) has hit +3°C (1850-1900 baseline), with Arctic CO2 at 440 ppm, permafrost thawing rapidly, and sea ice at wafer-thin levels. 

https://x.com/KrVaSt/status/1894355964012224991

https://x.com/KrVaSt/status/1880203382541193694

Here’s a detailed rundown of the run-up to this catastrophic threshold, assessing feasibility and consequences for crops, food stocks, societal stability, and extreme responses.

Temperature Trajectory: From 3°C to 18°C
 
Starting at Kris’s NH +3°C (February 2025), we adjust March 2025 to a global mean of 2-2.5°C (vs. NOAA’s 1.5°C 2024 baseline), reflecting Arctic amplification (440 ppm CO2, ~14 ppm/year rise).

Sam’s mechanisms suggest an exponential curve, with NH warming doubling in speed (0.1-0.2°C/decade historical to 1-2°C/year). Using an exponential fit (T(t) = T₀ + A·(e^(kt) - 1)), where T₀ = 2.5°C, T(1.83 years) = 18°C, k ≈ 2.1, A ≈ 2.5: 

July 2025: 5-6°C global (NH 7-8°C). Sunspots peak (#2), El Niño strengthens (#1), and early albedo loss (#5) from a shrinking Arctic ice extent (13.892 million km² trending to <1 million km²) drive a 2.5-3.5°C rise from March.

December 2025: 9-11°C global (NH 11-13°C). Double Blue Ocean Event (#5), permafrost methane releases (#6), and latent heat loss (#6) accelerate—CO₂e nears 600-700 ppm (CH₄ doubling underway).

July 2026: 15-17°C global (NH 17-19°C). Clouds tipping point (~1200 ppm CO₂e, #7) adds ~8°C (Sam’s estimate), methane doubles, water vapor surges (2.1°C, #7). NH doubles global rate. 

December 2026: 18°C global (NH 20-22°C). Full cascade—ocean heat (#8), wildfires (#9), and fluorinated gases (#10) seal the endgame.
This ~15.5-16°C global rise over 21 months (0.74-0.76°C/month, NH 1-2°C/month in 2026) aligns with Sam’s stacked feedbacks and Kris’s “uncontrollable” NH warming, fueled by 440 ppm CO2 and ice/permafrost collapse.

Crop Production Collapse At 5-6°C by July 2025, staple crops face severe stress: Wheat: Optimal 15-20°C; US Midwest, Ukraine hit 35-40°C—yields drop 6-10% per 1°C (30-50% loss). 
Rice: 20-35°C max; Southeast Asia (India, Vietnam) at 40-45°C—20-40% reduction. 
Corn: 35°C limit; US Corn Belt at 40-45°C—40-50% loss. 
Soy: Brazil, US at 35-45°C—30-40% decline. 
El Niño (#1) droughts (Australia, South America) and floods (#8, India) cut yields further (20-30%).
Global production falls 40-60%—tropics near total loss, cooler zones (Siberia) insufficient to offset.
By December 2025 (9-11°C), losses reach 60-80%;
July 2026 (15-17°C), agriculture ceases—soil temps exceed seed tolerance, pollinators extinct. 

Crop Price Spikes
 
Baseline (March 2025): wheat $250/MT, rice $500/MT, corn $200/MT, soy $400/MT.
Crop price at July 2025’s 40-60% drop:
Wheat: $500-$750/MT (100-200% rise)—stocks (280M MT, USDA 2024) buffer briefly, but panic doubles rates.
Rice: $1,250-$2,000/MT (150-400%)—Asia-centric collapse, export bans (e.g., India). Corn: $400-$700/MT (100-250%)—feed crisis spikes meat costs. Soy: $800-$1,200/MT (100-200%)—oil demand surges.
Spikes begin June 2025 as NH harvests (wheat, corn) falter—200-400% by July, 500-1,000% (wheat $1,250+, rice $5,000+) in worst-case zones by December 2025 (9-11°C).

Food Stock Depletion

U.S.: 290-300M MT (grains 280M, processed 10-20M)—1-1.5 years normal use. 
July 2025 (5-6°C): 40-60% crop loss, panic rate (20-40M MT/month); 
December 2025 (9-11°C): 60-120M MT left; 
July 2026 (15-17°C): <20M MT; depleted early-mid 2026 (12-14 months). 

Australia: 22-28M MT (grains 20-25M)—1-1.5 years. 
July 2025: 20-50% loss, 1-3M MT/month; 
December 2025: 5-15M MT; 
July 2026: <5M MT; gone mid-2026 (12-15 months). 

NH doubling speed (1-2°C/month) nudges U.S. depletion to early 2026—stocks vanish at 14-16°C. 

Distribution Dynamics

U.S. July 2025: FEMA controls 1-5% (1-15M MT), National Guard distributes to hubs (Denver, 50-70% reach); commercial 95% rationed—riots, black markets ($1,000/MT wheat). 
December 2025 (9-11°C): Military seizes 20-30%, 30-50% delivered—warlords rule rest. 

Australia July 2025: ADF holds 5-10% (1-2M MT) for cities (Sydney, 70-80% reach); rural hoards—refugees get scraps. 
December 2025: ADF 20-30%, 50-70% reach—rural warlords take over. 

By July 2026 (15-17°C), both see <10% distribution—militias scavenge remnants. 

Societal and Political Collapse

U.S. Elections 2026: November 8 unfeasible—D.C. fractures at 9-11°C (December 2025), collapses at 15-17°C (July 2026). No FEC, power, or voters—midterms die late 2025. 
Trump’s Tariffs: Imposed February 2025 (25% Canada/Mexico, 10% China), end December 2025 (9-11°C)—inflation (6-8%), trade collapse, and riots force reversal. 
MLB: 2025 World Series (October, 6-8°C) limps on—half-empty, generator-run; 2026 canceled at 15-17°C—stadiums turn shelters. 

India and China

July 2025 (5-6°C): 1.2-1.3B each—rice/wheat down 30-50%, 5-10% die-off.
December 2025 (9-11°C): 700-900M—60-80% crop loss, 20-30% gone.
July 2026 (15-17°C): 300-500M—Himalayas, Tibet delay; 50-60% dead.
December 2026 (18°C): 50-100M—wet-bulb 36-40°C ends it.

Nuclear Winter Gambit

At 9-11°C (December 2025), Russia might fire first—15-20 warheads (NYC, London, Siberia forests)—5-10 Tg soot, 5-15°C cooling. 
Motive: Arctic feedbacks (440 ppm CO2, methane doubling). 
Outcome: Brief respite, billions die—18°C rebounds post-fallout.

Plausibility

IPCC’s 4-5°C by 2100 contrasts with Sam’s 18°C in 22 months—an extreme stack of feedbacks (clouds 8°C, vapor 2.1°C, methane 1.1°C). 

Kris’s NH +3°C (440 ppm CO2) and doubling speed (1-2°C/month) make 5-10°C by 2026 plausible if tipping points cascade; 18°C remains a theoretical max. 

Even 5°C triggers collapse—18°C is existential.

Conclusion

From 3°C NH (March 2025) to 18°C global (December 2026), crops crash by July 2025 (40-60%), prices spike (200-400%), stocks deplete mid-2026 (14-16°C), and civilization unravels—tariffs end, elections vanish, nukes fly. 

Sam’s mechanisms, amplified by Kris’s Arctic data, paint a dire warning. 

Full details available—thoughts, group?




Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

How to respond to the threat of a huge temperature rise


The above image illustrates the threat of a huge temperature rise. The red trendline warns that the temperature could increase at a terrifying speed soon. 

Mechanisms contributing to a huge acceleration in the temperature rise

At first glance, the data may seem to disagree with such a rise, temperature anomalies even appear to have come down recently. However, a closer look at the shading in the image highlights the difference between El Niño conditions (pink shading) and La Niña conditions (blue shading). An El Niño pushes up temperatures, whereas La Niña suppresses temperatures. 

We're currently in a La Niña, so temperatures are suppressed, but this is predicted to end soon. NOAA predicts a transition away from La Niña to occur next month, as illustrated by the image below. 


Later this year, a new El Niño may emerge, which may push up the temperature dramatically. 

Importantly, ENSO is only one out of ten mechanisms that could jointly cause the temperature rise to accelerate dramatically in a matter of months, as described in a previous post and with further details for some of them following below. 

[ SSTA and wind, click to enlarge ]
An important mechanism driving up the temperature is rising ocean heat. The image on the right shows a sea surface temperature anomaly of 9.7°C (17.4°F) versus 1981-2011 at the green circle south of Africa on March 5, 2025.

The image also shows the impact of high sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) on the Jet Stream (250 hPa), with the Jet Stream going circular in two areas with high sea surface temperature anomalies.

These mechanisms interact and can also amplify each other dramatically, in particular rising ocean heat, deformation of the Jet Stream and shrinking sea ice.

[ click on image to enlarge ]
As the above compilation image shows, the Jet Stream (250 hPa) is forecast to go circular in three areas on the Northern Hemisphere and reach speeds as high as 216 km/h (134 mph, circle) over Greenland on March 11, 2025 06 UTC, pushing a lot of heat toward Baffin Bay (left panel). As a result, temperatures over Baffin Bay are forecast to be as much as 30°C higher than 1979-2000 (right panel).

[ Arctic sea ice volume, click to enlarge ]
The above image shows that Arctic sea ice area has been at a record daily low since the start of February 2025.  Importantly, Arctic sea ice volume has been at a record daily low for more than a year, as illustrated by the image on the right. 

There has been little to no sunshine over the Arctic over the past few months (Spring has only just started), so rising ocean heat is obviously contributing strongly to this extremely low Arctic sea ice volume. 

A recent study lead by Sohail describes how cold, fresh meltwater from Antarctica migrates north, filling the deep ocean as it goes and causing changes to the density structure of the ocean, leading to an overall slowdown in the current. 

[ from Sohail et al. (2025) ]
The above image, from the study, depicts how this could lead to reduced Antarctic Bottom Water. One danger is that less ocean heat reaching the seafloor will result in more heat accumulating at the surface and in the atmosphere, as discussed in an earlier post. A weaker current may also allow more warm water to penetrate southwards, and faster ice melting could then lead to further weakening of the current, commencing a vicious spiral of current slowdown, says Taimoor Sohail.

As illustrated by the image below, global sea ice area has been at a record daily low since February 2025. If this situation continues, a huge amount of sunlight that was previously reflected back into space will instead be absorbed by the surface—increasingly so on the Northern Hemisphere over the coming months, with the change in seasons. 

The loss of Earth's albedo (reflectivity) over the years is illustrated by the graph below, by Eliot Jacobson.

[ Image by Eliot Jacobson ]
What to expect

Some may question whether the temperature could rise as high as depicted in the red trendline in the image at the top. Others may question whether such a huge temperature rise could occur this rapidly. They all miss the point. The point is that a huge rise may occur soon and that politicians are taking little to no action. 

As the likeliness of a huge and accelerating temperature rise, the severity of its impact, and the ubiquity and the imminence with which it will strike all become more manifest—the more sobering it is to realize that a mere 3°C rise may suffice to cause human extinction.

A state of emergency is typically declared only after a disaster hits a specific area. Increasingly though, extreme weather events can be expected to occur more frequently and we must not only look at the intensity and severity at which one specific place is hit by an event, but we must also incorporate ubiquity and imminence in our response. As temperatures rise, more extreme weather events will occur with greater intensity, more frequently, over larger areas, with longer duration and they will become more ubiquitous and follow each other up with increasing if not accelerating rapidity.

How to repond

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.



Links

• Copernicus
https://climate.copernicus.eu

• NOAA - ENSO evolution and El Niño status 

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice volume and thickness
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

• Decline of Antarctic Circumpolar Current due to polar ocean freshening - by Taimoor Sohail et al. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adb31c
discussed on facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10162412290944679

• Kevin Pluck - seaice.visuals.earth
https://seaice.visuals.earth

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• nullschool.net
https://earth.nullschool.net

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , ,