This month’s open thread. Note that the Nenana Ice challenge break up date graph has been updated, and the Yukon river ice break up is imminent (or may have already happened! [Update – it already had]). Please stay focused on climate issues.
Climate science from climate scientists...
Black white and green
Radio Program: The Science Show
Do people have a place in wilderness?
Can we trust scientific papers?
Really good show looks into ancient history indigenous ways and human history meet geography climate science anthropology nature and essay on 1 in 7 science papers are fake.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/scienceshow/black-white-and-green/105307804
such as a new book : Beyond Green
The Social life of Australian Nature
Lesley Head
Rethinking our relationship with the environment
How are we to think about nature and the environment The idea of nature as it relates to culture, society and humans has always been in constant flux and highly contested. Lesley Head interrogates the ways the cultures of nature have operated in Australia across time, and how these ways of thinking and being limit our capacity to deal with the challenges of the climate change and biodiversity crises. Drawing on her life’s work and lessons she has picked up along the way, Head suggests that it is up to us to attentively listen, the better to destabilise and subvert dominant narratives, and to imagine new possibilities.
She believes we have the nous, resources and lessons from Indigenous, settler-descendant and immigrant cultures to reduce risk in the face of the unexpected and the unimaginable. In Beyond Green, the story of nature and people weaves research and personal experience ….
https://www.mup.com.au/books/beyond-green-paperback-softback
Oh, if only…
The end of the merry month of May draws near and ERA5’s ClimatePulse re-analysis data is showing a May 2025 global temperature anomaly of +0.53ºC, the lowest monthly anomaly since the start of the “bananas” temperatures and roughly back to the June 2023 anomaly level.
(June 2023 was back when the late-2023 “bananas” temperatures were just ramping up, being the first (of many) “scorchyisimo!!!” months. At +0.53ºC, June 2023 exceeded the previous record June temperature set 2020 by +0.16ºC. The rest of 2023 Jul-Dec averaged +0.36ºC above previous monthly record).
May 2025’s +0.53ºC sits as second warmest May on record, below May 2024 (+0.65ºC) and above 2020 (+0.47ºC), 2016 (+0.42ºC) & 2023 (+0.40ºC).
The start of 2025 Jan-May sits as the second warmest on record, at +0.64ºC, below 2024 (+0.71ºC) and above 2016 (+0.56ºC), 2020 (+0.53ºC) & 2017 (+0.42ºC).
A graphic of rolling 30-day & 150-day average of these anomalies is maintained HERE – First POSTED 17th March 2025. (It’s a pink one.)
The less-wobbly 60N-60S SST temperature anomaly also shown at ClimatePulse continues its steady cooling, latest 30-day average at +0.39ºC. This anomaly peaked well-above +0.6ºC at the end of 2023. The warming seen 1991-2020 was running at +0.151ºC/decade and would suggest a ‘banana-less’ +0.3ºC anomaly for late 2025. Bring on a bit of wishful thinking and the cooling from the ‘top banana’ so-far looks on target for that. (See graphics at link given just above – First POSTED 28th October 2024. A couple of blue ones.)
The global SAT split NH & SH so-far show the averaged-out NH anomaly has been running along the same ‘bananas’ high road since July 2023, with the NH anomaly showing a strong annual cycle peaking in November (+1.15ºC) and dipping down to a minimum in June 2024 (+0.85ºC).
Thus all the global cooling seen in 2025 relative to 2024 is in the Southern Hemisphere. The SH actually began tasting of ‘bananas’ a little before the NH did. Unlike the NH, there is no significant annual cycle established in the anomaly. ‘Top banana’ in the SH hit an anomaly of +0.38ºC in Nov 2023 followed by a slow cooling of something like -0.1ºC/year. (See graphic again at link given just above – First POSTED 28th October 2024. This time a grey one.)
So the June 2025 number could be interesting. Will the NH stay on the “bananas” high road or will it drop off into some less elevated place? Will the SH be content with its lonely decline or will it find some renewed urge for its “bananas” addiction? “These questions—and many others—will be answered in the next episode of … ‘Bananas’.”
Piotr parenthetically said
“(except your allies in the attacks on science: Paul Pukite and Killian)”
To be charitable, Piotr appears verbally challenged to not be able to spell out the difference between “attacks on science” and “attacking scientific problems”. There are two obvious scientific problems that are challenging to say the least. One that has a chance of being solved — the cause and behavioral modeling of natural climate variation is one I expend effort on because it is rewarding in an intellectual sense. The other one that I fear has less of a chance of being solvable is to enable the massive permanent sequestering of CO2 that is otherwise constantly circulating between the ocean/biota and atmosphere.
I’m afraid that Piotr is the rabid attack dog, it’s certainly not me.
Paul Pukite: “ To be charitable, Piotr appears verbally challenged to not be able to spell out the difference between “attacks on science” and “attacking scientific problems”.
A glutton for punishment, eh? So let’s test, again, your description of your words against your words themselves. As in thread: “Comparison Update 2024”
===========================
– Gavin Schmidt 27 Jan 2025: “There are two potential issues – the timing of the solar cycle 25 (a solar max warms the stratosphere)”
– Paul Pukite: “ That’s embarrassing to mention sunspots. Attributing solar sunspot cycles to climate variation is the equivalent of prescribing Ivermectin to a medical condition. Perhaps worse because you guys claim to understand the physics..”
===============
Please do tell us, o verbally and ethically … gifted Paul Pukite, how your equating the climate SCIENCE models …. to antivaxers pushing Ivermectin against COVID is NOT “ attacking science“.
And what “scientific problem” did you attack when you attacked Gavin Schmidt and his colleagues, claiming their “embarrassing” ignorance of physics, that made them “perhaps WORSE” than antivaxers
– ALL that SOLELY on the basis of YOUR own ignorance (your confidence that solar cycles _cannot_ “warm stratosphere”) ?
Paul Pukite: “ Piotr is the rabid attack dog, it’s certainly not me.”
Your comparing climate science models and Gavin to antivaxers – suggests otherwise. Ruff, ruff … ;-)
For all of you ‘just asking questions’, from any point of view there has been a remarkable review of the state of research at 100 Hours to Save America’s Forecasts, Weather and Climate Livestream. It should answer almost any question about how we know, and how much we know.
https://www.youtube.com/@wclivestream/live
There are now (or will be) links to the entire collection of presentations. This is a collection of very fine work, with unequivocal overall conclusions about what we observe and what we know. When I am satisfied that a working link is available (currently in progress with live part) I will post the link. Here’s the main site, which also should lead you to more information.
https://wclivestream.com/
Thanks, Susan!