Climate Future

12/03/2026

It's a while since our last post. This one seems to stand out as it builds on a lot of the climate science of the last few years and the most recent research on the processes at play. A lot of this revolves around the oceans. They are at the core of the behaviour of our climate system, containing 90% of the additional heat we have added.
Global temperatures have taken a jump since 2023. Many scientists are trying to pin down the cause of this jump. This article provides a convincing breakdown of an ocean mechanism driving global temperatures - surface heat in the top stratified layer.
This has direct implications for the urgency of preventing any more carbon emissions as this is a driver of extreme weather and represents an acceleration of atmospheric temperature increase.
Even 20 years ago, it seemed insane to be continuing to burn fossil carbon. Instead, we have continued to allow the coal, oil and gas industry to control our politics and our economy. They have continued to push us towards disaster. Now, we face the consequences of our own insanity and the criminal behaviour of those who have denied the truth.
To some it appears already too late. But, the more we push the climate system, the worse the final catastrophe will be. We owe it to those who come after us to step up and try harder.

As ocean layers decouple, a record-breaking 2025 heat pulse prepares to collide with a 2026 El Niño, supercharging global weather and accelerating non-linear warming.

06/02/2026

Our flying foxes provide a critical service to our forests by fertilising the flowers and spreading the seeds of many species of trees. Gum trees such as spotted gum, red gum, blackbutt, bloodwood, white mahogany, yellow box, tallowwood and more, as well as melaleucas, figs, banksias and rainforest trees such as quandong, silky oak, lilly pilly, brush box, and even many palm trees.
The loss of these bats as they are forced towards extinction by worse and worse heat waves, will cause the flow-on death of biodiversity right across the Australian east coast.
A foundational species in the Australian forest biome is being destroyed and we are not even at 1.5C yet.
Please act - call your representative. We must get off coal, oil and gas much faster than we currently are. The transition must be accelerated and preparations made to directly extract and permanently store the last 25 years of emissions (negative emissions). The longer we take simply increases the volume we need to extract.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/05/flying-foxes-january-heatwaves-kill-thousands?fbclid=IwY2xjawPyCL5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeaB_NKAm8cetPhsyAaAyGw_ElJsCHREAFDH12wjkchsgN9YGSiKNfYQnXcEo_aem_V1kLCsV7E1dIjzEfh1-D5Q

Only 180 bats survived intense heat in South Australian town, including 34 babies that carers say face months of recovery

02/02/2026

This is the sort of irreversible change that a warming planet brings. This algal bloom may stay with us permanently. Or, it may become a recurring nightmare for ocean life and residents of South Australia into the future. It is not going to go back to the way it was.
As the global temperature rises above 1.5C in coming years, it's one step away from such blooms spreading wider, to many locations across the world. Already there are blooms along coastlines of Southern California, Brazil, China, South Korea, India, Persian Gulf, inland lakes in South Africa and Kenya, Baltic, Northern Ireland, Adriatic, Belgium, SW England, Lake Erie, and Florida.
Warning! - there is worse to come as marine heat waves increase in both extent and location. 90% of the energy we have trapped has gone into ocean waters.
Poisonous waters, anoxic zones, dead marine life. This is a direct threat to one of our main sources of food and we have 8 billion mouths to feed.
We need much more action from our governments. We are pushing 1.5C and some scientists say we are already committed to passing 2C. We are almost out of time - only a few short years left to get to zero and we certainly can go a lot faster to zero carbon.
We must stop approving coal, oil and gas and transition off what we already have. We must shut down the fossil fuel industry.
Please, please... go and talk to your representatives. Stop this madness before it is too late. Time is short.

On Kangaroo Island – where the bloom has washed death ashore for almost a year – a group of citizen scientists are focusing their efforts on "what’s still out there".

04/01/2026

Climate change does not just mean more heat. It also means stronger, longer-lasting and more chaotic weather.

Australia is at risk from similar behaviour over Antarctica. This article is written for Europe/US, but it provides a very good description of how a Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event over the poles changes the polar vortex and how the consequent changes to weather on the ground unfold. Similar SSW events over Antarctica are on the increase and we can expect these to impact on Australia.

The videos are particularly informative. Watch how the cold polar air penetrates into the temperate zone and causes sudden swings in hot/cold weather (apologies for the ads on the videos).

The result is very disturbed behaviour across inhabited temperate lands - heat waves followed by cold snaps and increasing storminess. This will impact on our buildings and on our agriculture. Failure of crops due to un-seasonal cold and hot swings is one result with fruit and seed failing to develop. Destruction of crops from strengthening heat, storms and floods is another.

Urgent action is required by all governments around the world. They are currently failing to make changes fast enough to meet the Paris goal of 1.5C. For example, we must immediately stop all new investment in fossil fuel mining and burning. Yet our governments continue to approve new coal, oil and gas mining, refining facilities, transport hubs, etc.

This is not some radical position. The fossil fuel industries have to be shut down now, starting with no new investment. This is what is needed to keep our world livable. We cannot negotiate with physics!

Is a major winter shift coming for the U.S. and Europe? New model data shows a Polar Vortex disruption is coming in January, following a Stratospheric Warming event

24/12/2025

Through Aug to late Oct 2025, a large portion of the Dehdal Glacier in Tajikistan barreled down a long valley. The mass of ice was destabilised by hot dry conditions for several months. A portion 1,500 m long by 200 m wide by 50 m high (around 10 million tonnes of ice) slid at high speed for 4 km in a few seconds and again a few days later by a further 5 km. No villages were impacted and there were no casualties. As of Dec, the movement of the remnant glacier has continued at 40 m per day.
The Dehdal Glacier is known for its surges, where it moves faster than normal (scientists have been regularly visiting the glacier for a long time). Surges have occurred 4 times in the last 120 years, the last one being as recently as 2016. The 2025 event was not expected for decades.
Similar massive collapses of large glaciers around Antarctica, such as the Thwaites Glacier, could release 100,000 times as much ice into the ocean in one go.
This is the scenario of a massive, sudden collapse of a significant proportion of land based ice into the world's oceans resulting in a sudden rise in sea level. Such behaviour of global ice has not been ruled out by the IPCC and may only be 20 years away given how we continue to expand mining and burning of coal, oil and gas.
This threat has to be compounded with many others - heat waves, drought, fire, flood, storm, etc. Climate change is a direct threat to our survival and we must react as if this is an emergency... because it is.
We have the technology to move to fully renewable electricity and transport. We must do so now, not in 25 years or even 10 years time. The change is urgent and pressing and the consequences if we don't act are too horrific to describe.
We must act now.

Scientists report: https://glofca.org/en/news/major-collapse-of-the-dehdal-glacier-an-indicator-of-climate-change/ #:~:text=On%2025%20October%202025%2C%20at,condition%20in%202020%20and%202024
Raw video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9hLi4zW0Xk4
Video narrated by scientist: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CzogZFO5Hi8

A massive glacier in Tajikistan collapsed and started sliding down at high speed as a local filmed it on camera. It happened on the slopes of Ismoil Somoni P...

12/12/2025

What a devastating report. Glacial earthquakes are different from land earthquakes in they have no high frequency vibrations. Most of the detections are at Thwaites terminal end.
"... the most prolific period of glacial earthquakes at Thwaites, between 2018 and 2020, coincides with a period of accelerated flow of the glacier’s ice tongue towards the sea. The ice-tongue speed-up period was independently confirmed by satellite observations.
"This speed-up could have been caused by ocean conditions, the effect of which is not yet well understood.
"The findings suggest the short-term scale impact of ocean states on the stability of marine-terminating glaciers. This is worth further exploration to assess the potential contribution of the glacier to future sea-level rise.
"The second largest cluster of detections occurred near the Pine Island Glacier. However, these were consistently located 60–80 kilometres from the waterfront, so they are not likely to have been caused by capsizing icebergs."
This presence of a short concentrated period of fast calving suggests a mode of behaviour that was entered and then stopped again. It implies that Thwaites could again attain that mode of behaviour and not stop but continue into the long term - a very worrying thought.

The seismic echoes of capsizing icebergs falling from Thwaites Glacier have been detected for the first time.

03/11/2025

This is the polar vortex today, 4 Nov 2025. It shows winds and their speed (pink colour is fastest) and should be round and symmetrical. Climate change is de-stabilising this system and the result is more chaotic weather for Australia. If you want to learn more, come to the Before the Tide Festival, 21st to 23rd Nov. There is a facebook event with lots of info in the Discussion (https://www.facebook.com/events/1371899281233091/?active_tab=discussion). Please let us know you are coming, as space is limited, by booking on the CEN webpage.
(These images are explained in the comments below.)

28/07/2025

Report calls for new mechanisms to deal with catastrophic disasters such as the South Australian Toxic Algal Bloom.

This bloom (called a harmful algal bloom, HAB) will likely continue for some time, but further blooms will occur as marine heat waves continue to worsen.

A recent jump (since 2023) in marine temperatures has pushed us into a new regime of heat waves across the world, including Marine Heat Waves (high water temperature of the ocean surface layer). Increasing heat exchange between the Southern Ocean and Antarctica will increase such MHWs and storminess in the southern ocean. The impacts of climate warming are proliferating in ways we have not predicted as the climate system surprises us with new types of disasters and positive feedbacks. Tipping points loom.

This toxic bloom is not the only one. The east coast of the US, zones off Europe, Africa, India, East Asia and even the Southern Indian Ocean have seen such blooms creating ocean "dead zones" in recent decades.

The report by the independent Biodiversity Council, including experts from many Australian Universities, calls for the following in relation to the SA disaster:

1. Investigate and fast-track emergency interventions for species at high risk of extinction or major population declines.
2. Immediately invest a minimum of $10 million to start research to understand the impact of this bloom and inform plans for what to do when the next bloom hits.
3. Accelerate Australia’s decarbonisation efforts and become a global leader in climate action.
4. Reduce nutrient and dissolved carbon pollution.
5. Restore and protect marine ecosystems.
6. Establish a long-term monitoring program for the Great Southern Reef.
7. Establish mechanisms to plan for and respond to catastrophic natural disasters.

Item 7 exposes just how vulnerable we are to the surprises that climate change has in store for us. We desperately need to increase our resilience to disastrous weather events and resulting catastrophic impacts. Threats to biodiversity are only one aspect of this threat. Loss of whole ecological communities threatens to impact on food supply and farming, clean water, and human health. Other impacts include flooding, bushfire and storm damage to our property, infrastructure and our building stock.

The Biodiversity Council has released a report outlining seven key actions needed to urgently respond to the algal bloom and broader marine heatwave, and to prepare for a more dangerous future nationally.

27/07/2025

Climate Change has been ignored by the world's banks and governments at the behest of the fossil fuel industry. Now we are seeing serious impacts threatening our food supply. These algal blooms are here to stay and will now not go away until we bring the global temperature back down below current levels.
This means atmospheric concentrations need to be lowered to at least 350 ppm.
Yes, we have to immediately stop burning coal, oil and gas and begin a huge industrial process to capture and permanently store the carbon that we have burned since the year 2000 (600 billion tonnes of CO2).
Every year we continue to release emissions makes this industrial effort more and more of a burden on future generations.
We must not lose hope because this can still be done. But, it must be done now and not in 5 years or 10 years or by 2050, or 2070.
Such 'net zero' targets are madness and will be measured in human suffering and death. A good deal of which is now inevitable. https://www.facebook.com/abcnews.au/posts/pfbid0P2AJQKtXsurhJUcgc4MuSidpKfBSNYNCYrTS5NnUDe6d69dp7ryRcTbPR4UKw9Xjl

As South Australia deals with its unprecedented algal bloom, a bloom of a different kind has been decimating California's coastline for four years, killing whales, dolphins and causing sea lions to behave aggressively on beaches. Warning: This story contains content that some readers may find distre...

19/06/2025

This is a really good explanation of how the Earth's cloud system works and how cloud formation has changed and is trending.
It is linked to the sudden jump in global heat in 2023 and to other influences such as feedbacks (ocean surface stratification, evaporation, clouds, etc.), reduction in human aerosols (e.g. sulfur in shipping fuels) abrupt tundra melt, wildfire and more.
The bottom line is that warming is accelerating. Total greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are also accelerating when we desperately need them to be reducing.
Looking at the graph (~10 min into the video) the bands of active cloud formation are narrowing and moving poleward. IMO it also looks like the amount of variation is also reducing, suggesting that the change is driven by a strong guiding force (of course).
The sub-tropical zones appear to be in serious trouble, with the low-cloud band expanding continually and equatorial cloud shrinking to a narrow strip.
As the trend continues, it suggests expanding dry zones both north and south of the equator. When combined with globally increasing heat waves, this means desertification with serious implications for the great tropical forests. These forests produce a fair proportion of our oxygen (planetary geo-engineering anyone!).
The implications for us here in the southern hemisphere (Australia) relate to what happens on the Southern Ocean and over Antarctica. If the cloud band to our south narrows as it is pushed up against the polar continent, then warming will again accelerate as more and more of the Southern Ocean loses its reflective cloud cover and starts to absorb more heat.
Then we would need to look towards the cold of Antarctica and its heat exchange with both the Southern Ocean and the equatorial regions to our north. Such heat exchange will be very disturbed making increased storminess and resulting in whiplash weather from hot to cold across the mid-latitudes (us).

Cloud Zones are Shifting and Contracting: Fewer High Reflectivity Clouds Greatly Accelerate WarmingPlease donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my res...

12/06/2025

Great interview with Michael Mann. "Reaching a peak (emissions) is not good enough, we have to come down that mountain, down to near zero to prevent carbon dioxide concentrations continuing to rise in the atmosphere." "...we've got to limit warming as much as we possibly can because 1.6 (degrees C) is better than 1.7 and 1.7 is better than 1.8 and so on." "We need to see far more attention in our main stream media to what is truly a crisis, the climate crisis." "...we are probably not taking into account the full toll, the full cost of the impacts of climate change thus far and the impacts that we will see if we continue to warm the planet." He is not exaggerating here: "The truth is bad enough, we don't need to exaggerate it to make the case for urgent action."

Our last chance to shut down Climate Change is coming to an end just as Trump is gutting vital climate change funding. What could possibly go wrong? Dr. Mich...

06/06/2025

Check this out! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1048265813902237