This is Not Cool

Up the Temperature Stair Case: Super El Niño Could be a “Major Jump”

Just over 10 years ago I interviewed Kevin Trenberth in San Francisco, in the midst of what turned out to be a strong El Niño event, when global temperature rose smartly through 2015-16, in a pattern that Dr. Trenberth described as a “step function”, and he hypothesized that successive El Niño events, since they represent a major cycle in ocean absorption and release of heat to the atmosphere, were important markers of the global heating process.
We have enough of a record now to see that Dr Trenberth was broadly correct. The El Niño cycle seems to be an important one in which planetary temperature equilibrates to a somewhat higher level.
The cycles historically recur on a 2 to 7 year cycle, the last one was 2023-24, with 2024 being the warmest year in the record.

Washington Post:

This year’s El Niño is looking increasingly likely to have wide-reaching impacts across the planet.

It’s still in its developmental stages and it’s too early to confidently say just how strong it may become, but its tendencies have been similar to major events in the past — boosted by record-breaking westerly wind bursts in the Pacific, which blow warm water eastward.

No two El Niño events are exactly alike, but here are some of the possibilities.

Atlantic hurricane season impacts

Harsh winds in the middle and upper atmosphere during formidable El Niño events can create conditions that are less conducive to hurricane formation.

“Overall, this would be about as unfavorable an Atlantic look as you could get for the peak of hurricane season,” wrote meteorologist Andy Hazelton, who has been tracking this potential El Niño’s impact on the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, which starts June 1.

Even if there are fewer storms, El Niño doesn’t tell you where hurricanes may go. It only takes one landfall — as demonstrated by Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992 — for it to be a memorable season.

The strongest El Niño events almost always cause a record warm year. That’s because heat comes out of the ocean during El Niño, overspreads the tropics in the Pacific, then gets redistributed across the planet.

“The El Nino cometh,” wrote climate scientist Zeke Hausfather.

“Sky is the Limit” for Oil Prices

“Above what anyone expected”.
“A fifth of the world’s energy supply stuck.”

The Hill:

President Trump is pushing oil tanker crews to “show some guts” and sail through the Strait of Hormuz.

“These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts, there’s nothing to be afraid of. … They have no Navy, we sunk all their ships,” Trump said, according to Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade, who recounted the president’s remarks during an interview.

“Farmers and small businesses will see dramatically higher costs from diesel.”

Fox43 – Harrisburg, PA:

As fighting in the Middle East enters its second week, the American Farm Bureau is sounding the alarm on fertilizer prices.

On Monday, the American Farm Bureau held a press conference to discuss the volatility of the fertilizer market since the start of the Iran War. According to the bureau, the Middle East is a key export hub for nitrogen fertilizer, accounting for nearly half of the world’s urea exports and 30% of ammonia exports.

Earth Warming Accelerating as Aerosols Reduced

Bloomberg:

Planetary warming has significantly accelerated over the past 10 years, with temperatures rising at a higher rate since 2015 than in any previous decade on record, a new study showed.

The Earth warmed around 0.35 degrees Celsius in the decade to 2025, compared to just under 0.2C per decade on average between 1970 and 2015, according to a paper published on Friday in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. This is the first statistically significant evidence of an acceleration of global warming, the authors said.

The past three years have been the hottest on record, compared to the average before the Industrial Revolution. In 2024, warming went past 1.5C, the lower limit set by the Paris Agreement. That target refers to temperature increases over 20 years, but breaching it for one year shows efforts to slow down climate change have been insufficient, the scientists who wrote the new paper said.

Study: Agriculture, Climate Change Pounding Bird Populations

No, it ain’t wind turbines.

Science:

Using data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, the authors found that about half of the 261 species analyzed showed significant declines from 1987 to 2021, and a quarter showed accelerating declines. Hotspots of accelerating abundance decline were located in regions with high-intensity agriculture (high cropland area, fertilizer use, or pesticide use)

The first notable finding is that warm and warming regions coincide with areas of abundance decline (ΔN, Fig. 3, A and C, and figs. S7 and S8). This pattern is consistent with the evidence that bird populations are shifting their distributions northward as they track cooler conditions (31). Increases in temperatures have been shown to increase the risk of bird species’ extinction as a result of a lack of species adaptability to rapidly changing climatic conditions (32), and consistent temperature-related responses have been documented across both Europe and North America (33). Our results further support this by showing that areas experiencing greater warming (Fig. 3C) also exhibit stronger abundance declines, suggesting that rising temperatures may be a driver of recent bird population losses.

Oil Strikes in Tehran Bring Polluted, Toxic Pall over Mideast

Drop Site News on X:

Israeli strikes on oil depots around Tehran have released massive quantities of toxic hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Mixed with rainwater, these chemicals are causing highly acidic precipitation that can cause skin burns and severe lung damage upon contact, according to Iranian authorities.

▪️ Dense plumes of black smoke from the Shahran and other refineries have blotted out the sun, plunging parts of the city into darkness and creating a “nuclear winter” effect, NYT reported. Authorities warned that these noxious fumes cause acute respiratory distress and eye irritation.

▪️ Oil-saturated rainwater has blanketed the city, leaving rooftops, balconies, and streets covered in a thick, murky black liquid and oily soot. This contamination poses a long-term risk of heavy metals like nickel and vanadium leaching into the soil and local water systems.

▪️ Environmental groups warn the pollution threatens migratory birds crossing the Persian Gulf. The “black rain” and smoke plumes can cause internal organ damage and destroy the insulating properties of bird feathers, leading to hypothermia and death.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society warned of the dangers of the rain, advising residents to protect themselves and to cover exposed food from oily soot particles. Officials said the rain is highly corrosive and could potentially damage civilian structures.

Trump “Backed in Corner” in Epstein Oil War

As I wrote last week, Iran is in the driver’s seat, despite being hammered by superior US and Israeli power.
Number one because their capacity to wreck interlinked and globally integrated
markets, which are rapidly ramping pain on Americans, and could, according to some well informed officials, disrupt the global economy.
For many who though this was all fun and games for a long time, real impacts showing up that could be long lasting, and real fears about an expanding war and worldwide ripple effects are putting increased pressure on the team of unprepared amateurs in the Trump cabinet.

Some darker fears of an uncontrolled WWIII scenario are making the rounds.

Batteries, Solar, Can Rival Nuclear for Reliability

Mark Jacobson has taken a lot of heat for his insistence that Wind, water, solar and batteries can power the grid reliably – but relentlessly evolving technology keeps proving his point, particularly since massive battery buildout in states like California and Texas is creating what amounts to a phase-change in how the grid works, crowding out gas to an amazing degree.

Mark Jacobson on X:

Fossil gas use for electricity down 59.5% in 2026 versus 2023 in the world’s 4th-largest economy.

16th-straight and 43rd of 66 days in 2026 with >100% WindWaterSolar on California’s main grid

Fossil gas use continues to plummet as solar & batteries rise

Michigan’s Tornado is Earliest EF 3 on Record

Two weeks ago I was in the northernmost part of Lower Michigan in Gaylord, attending a remembrance event for survivors of a highly destructive ice storm that swept thru a year ago in early April, knocking out power for weeks in some cases, and causing immense damage to infrastructure, including electric transmission, that is still being addressed.
One topic that came up was that Gaylord was just getting over another traumatic event, a very rare EF 3 strength tornado that hit the community in May of 2022. Tornadoes in this part of the upper midwest are, needless to say, extremely rare historically.

Last week another twister of similar strength hit last week in early March, this time in South Michigan, part of a larger band of storms that caused a ground stop at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, where I was waiting for an (eventually cancelled) flight.
With thousands passengers stranded, rental cars disappeared quickly, but I managed to snag one by Ubering about 15 miles west of the airport in the Chicago suburbs. That had me driving through western Michigan under some unusually intense rain and fog conditions for hours to get home, about the same time twisters were killing 4 people not far away.
The video from Union City, MI looks not so much like Michigan in March, as Oklahoma in May.
Union Lake is still iced over.

War Makes Euro Energy Prices Swing

An economy in transition, more batteries needed.
Look for massive acceleration in renewable adoption.

Financial Times:

European electricity prices are swinging wildly from daytime to evening as the Iran war’s disruption to gas supplies accentuates growing volatility in Europe’s power markets amid the rise of renewables. Wholesale prices in markets such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are rising and falling by hundreds of euros per megawatt hour over the course of an afternoon, data from Montel Analytics shows, as abundant electricity from solar panels is replaced by gas-fired power as the sun goes down.

Prices then slump again as the evening peak passes. On March 4, day-ahead prices in Denmark swung from €26 per MWh at 2pm to almost €430 at 5.45pm, less than four hours later. Prices in the Netherlands jumped from €24 to €450 over the same period, with similarly large swings in Belgium and Germany. European wholesale prices have become more volatile in recent years due to the growth of intermittent renewable power, which means low prices when it is windy and sunny and higher prices when fossil fuels are needed to meet demand.

Nightmare: An AI Takeover Scenario

Maybe we should think about this.