Arguments
Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation
Global warming is real and human-caused. It is leading to large-scale climate change. Under the guise of climate "skepticism", the public is bombarded with misinformation that casts doubt on the reality of human-caused global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming "skepticism".
Our mission is simple: debunk climate misinformation by presenting peer-reviewed science and explaining the techniques of science denial, discourses of climate delay, and climate solutions denial.
The Merchants of Doubt are coming for Extreme Event Attribution science
Posted on 22 June 2026 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
Last week, I attended a meeting at Columbia University on attribution science and climate law, hosted by the Sabin Center. It was a fantastic event, bringing together scientists and legal experts working at the intersection of extreme event attribution and climate law.
For those unfamiliar with it, extreme event attribution attempts to quantify the contribution of climate change to an extreme event. For example, severalgroupsanalyzed the impact of climate change on Hurricane Harvey’s enormous rainfall totals over Houston, Texas and they found that climate change increased rainfall by 15 to 38%.
One thing that came up again and again was how terrified fossil-fuel interests are of extreme event attribution science. They are acutely aware that this research could land them in court. And losing those cases would leave them legally liable for billions of dollars in climate damages.
Because the legal stakes are so high, the blowback has turned ugly. I spoke with several scientists at the meeting who are facing ongoing harassment over their work.
This blowback is a coordinated campaign to make the entire field look suspect. The goal is to create the impression that attribution science is too uncertain, too political, or too conflicted to be useful in court or in public policy. The strategy is not based on actual science or evidence of misconduct, but on the generation of doubt.
The new Merchants of Doubt
We’ve seen this before. In fact, not that long ago: We only have to go back a year to the Department of Energy (DOE) Climate Working Group (CWG) report to see an example of using doubt as the tool to push back against well-established science.
This strategy is laid out in an email from a member of the CWG, Dr. Roy Spencer, that was released during litigation over the Climate Working Group process.
The key quote is:
2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25
Posted on 21 June 2026 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Change Impacts (8 articles)
- What's driving up your expenses? Many Americans say climate change Most Democrats and moderate Republicans agree that global warming is increasing the cost of living, a new survey shows. The Daily Climate, Kate Yoder, Jun 14, 2026.
- As Global Warming Threatens Corals Worldwide, Woods Hole Scientists Search for `Super Reefs` That Can Take the Heat If protected, researchers say these coral strongholds may help repopulate more degraded reefs across the Central Pacific. Inside Climate News, Teresa Tomassoni, Jun 14, 2026.
- Tensions Are Rising Between States That Rely on the Colorado River A prolonged drought means the nation’s largest reservoirs are dwindling, and litigation over access to water could lie ahead. NYT, Scott Dance, Jun 15, 2026.
- The `super El Niño` is here. What happens next could upend food systems worldwide How the cyclical weather pattern interacts with climate change could spark hunger around the world. The Daily Climate, Grist, Jun 16, 2026.
- Antarctica Heatwave: Rapid Melt-Off Sparks Warning Over Doomsday Glacier A freak Antarctica heatwave in June has stunned scientists and deepened concern that the rapid melting could accelerate future sea-level rise. IBT, Kenneth Axl, Jun 16, 2026.
- A Texas-size chunk of winter sea ice is missing from Antarctica - and it's probably not coming back An area of ice nearly the size of Texas has failed to form over the Bellingshausen Sea, off western Antarctica, as researchers investigate the links between sea ice loss and global warming. Live Science, Patrick Pester, Jun 16, 2026.
- Climate change is now causing more local extinction in temperate regions than the tropics, study shows Phys.org, Kylianne Chadwick, University of Arizona, Jun 18, 2026.
- Seal pups and seabird chicks are suffering in extreme weather. How can we protect them? The Conversation, Milan Sojitra, Mark Hemer, Sophie Bestley and Stuart Corney, Jun 19, 2026.
Climate Science and Research (6 articles)
- ‘Weird and capricious’: Experts struggle to understand new list of political jobs at science agencies NOAA among agencies to be commanded by political apparatchiks. Science, Jeffrey Mervis, June 10, 2026.
- Amoc collapse could change Europe`s climate 10x faster than expected. We aren`t ready The system of ocean current that moves heat in the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role in regulating climate, leaving us to wonder why monitoring of ocean behavior is being discontinued. The Guardian, Penny Holliday, Femke de Jong and Sjoerd Groeskamp, Jun 14, 2026.
- Climate models are missing the first warning signs of deadly Middle East heat waves, study finds Climate change deniers often criticize climate models as just more "alarmism," but here's yet another case where models are in fact underestimating hazards of human-caused climate change. Phys.org, HUJ press release, Jun 17, 2026.
- Trump U-turn on ending ocean initiative comes as UN says science is under attack The Trump administration is pausing plans to dismantle a deep-sea monitoring system after facing fierce opposition. New Zealand Herald, Agence France Presse, Jun 18, 2026.
- Does climate change lead to more migration? Here`s why researchers can`t agree on the evidence Over recent decades, the relationship between climate change and migration has become an active, dynamic field of research, but far from producing a unified view the topic is still plagued with major conceptual, methodological and political discrepancies. The Conversation, Alexis Cloquell Lozano, Beatriz Felipe Pérez, Joan Lacomba Vazquez, María Isolda Perelló Carrascosa, Jun 19, 2026.
- Is Climate Change Supercharging El Niño? As a new, potentially record-breaking El Niño begins, researchers are vigorously debating whether climate change is driving the phenomenon’s intensity. NYT, Chico Harlan, Jun 19, 2026.
Cooking up the Climate Stripes, with Ed Hawkins
Posted on 20 June 2026 by BaerbelW
June 20 is "Climate Stripes Day" across the world and the creator Ed Hawkins of this iconic graphic recently talked with Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Iain Strachan on their "Totally Cooked" podcast about them.
From the video's description:
In this episode of Totally Cooked: The Climate & Weather Podcast, hosts Iain Strachan and Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick sit down with one of the world’s most recognisable climate communicators: Professor Ed Hawkins from the University of Reading. Ed is the climate scientist behind the now-iconic Climate Stripes, a deceptively simple graphic made of blue and red bars that tells the story of global warming at a glance. First published in 2018, the stripes visualise more than a century of rising global temperatures, with each stripe representing the average temperature for a single year and shifting from cooler blues to warmer reds as the planet heats up.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #25 2026
Posted on 18 June 2026 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Rapid rebound hides glacier mass loss from satellite observations in Alaska and Iceland, Sasgen et al., Communications Earth & Environment
Time-variable satellite gravimetry constrains global glacier mass change, but requires correction for glacial isostatic adjustment. These corrections are commonly treated as slowly varying background signals from past ice loading and assumed to be separable from present-day glacier loss. Here we show that this separation can fail in low-viscosity settings, where viscoelastic rebound can approach isostatic compensation on annual-to-decadal timescales and covary with ongoing ice retreat. Using millennium-scale glacier reconstructions and viscoelastic Earth modelling, we incorporate rapid rebound into gravimetry trend inversions for Alaska and Iceland. This reveals additional ice loss of ~7 ± 1 Gt yr−1 in Alaska and ~3 ± 1 Gt yr−1 in Iceland (2002–2025), with uncertainties spanning Earth-model spread. Globally, gravimetry-inferred glacier mass loss increases by ~10 Gt yr−1 (~0.03 mm yr−1 global mean sea-level rise; ~4%), with ~9% more loss in Alaska and about one-third more in Iceland. Similar inversion biases are expected elsewhere in low-viscosity regions.
Human-caused sea level rise drives 21st-century worldwide water level extremes, Gilford et al., Science Advances
The rate and impacts of sea level rise vary considerably around the world, but the contribution of human-caused climate change to increases in local and regional flood risks has not yet been systematically explored. Because such information is critical to local decision making, legal proceedings, and loss and damage determinations, we quantify human-caused climate change’s contributions to sea level rise at worldwide locations using budget-based and semiempirical model methods. Results show that human-caused sea level rise is quantifiable at 97% of 519 tide gauge sites and is responsible for 58% (44 to 65%) of the observed daily extreme water level exceedances over 2000–2018. On average, human-caused sea level rise has caused a near-tripling in the number of days with attributable exceedances since the 1970s.
Ideological divides around solar radiation modification geoengineering, Davies, Energy Research & Social Science
Research into geoengineering by Solar Radiation Modification is strongly opposed by significant groups, despite its apparently benevolent aims. This article considers whether that standpoint is best explained by (i) fears about safety, moral hazard or governance, (ii) confidence in speedy emissions reduction, or (iii) concerns about the kind of society that SRM geoengineering may create or allow to continue. It finds that the third is the most plausible explanation. Concerns about SRM synergies with capitalism, exploitation, and the instrumentalization of nature mean that people committed to certain social and economic ideals will reject SRM even if – precisely if – it is potentially workable and safe. It is those wider ideals that explain and justify calls to stop research, as other issues around SRM are riddled with unknowns that only research can address. The significance of locating SRM disagreements in ideological commitments is that these cannot be resolved by more research and improving understanding. That has consequences for policy-makers, politics and academics.
Misinformation and public support across renewable energy technologies in the United States, Ermarth & Chang, Energy Research & Social Science
Combining a large-scale social media sentiment analysis with a national survey experiment (N = 2206), this study explores how misinformation, media format, political ideology, gender, and geographic proximity influence attitudes toward renewable energy investment. Findings reveal that exposure to misinformation significantly decreases investment support for renewables across regions, genders, and energy types, though the magnitude of the effect varies. Political ideology and gender emerge as stronger predictors of support than geography or media modality, with men and liberals demonstrating consistently higher support levels. Moderates are closer to conservatives in their support of RETs. Proximity to renewable projects is associated with increased self-reported knowledge of renewables, which in turn modestly boosts investment support; however, this relationship is not uniform across regions. Sentiment analysis of social media discourse indicates that technologies like hydropower and geothermal—which showed higher susceptibility to misinformation—are also framed more negatively online. The complexity of public attitudes toward renewable energy suggest that combating misinformation, tailoring communication strategies to demographic and regional audiences, and strengthening public knowledge are critical to building broader coalitions for the energy transition. Future research should continue to examine these dynamics using larger, longitudinal, and mixed-method approaches.
Quantifying the impact of Skeptical Science rebuttals in reducing climate misperceptions, Cook et al., Geoscience Communication
Misinformation about climate change leads to societal damage in a number of ways and consequently, resources are required to support interventions that counter their influence. Aiming to meet this need, Skeptical Science is a highly-visited website featuring 250 rebuttals of misinformation about climate change. The rebuttals are written at three levels – basic, intermediate, and advanced – in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. This study collected survey data from visitors to the website and assessed the effectiveness of rebuttals in reducing acceptance of climate myths and increasing acceptance of climate facts. Our data found that nearly half of the visitors were already highly convinced regarding climate facts. We found that the rebuttals were effective in reducing belief in climate myths, but that some rebuttals show a concerning reduction in belief in climate facts. The greatest improvement occurred with visitors who began with the most inaccurate climate perceptions. This indicates that the website is useful for two main audiences – those who are convinced about climate change but looking for material to support their own climate communication efforts, and those who disagree with climate facts but are open to new information. We examine potential ways that Skeptical Science rebuttals could be updated to improve their performance in raising climate literacy and critical thinking skills.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Climate Change in the Indian Mind, Winter 2025/2026, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University
82% of people in India favor banning the construction of new coal power plants, closing existing ones, and replacing them with solar and wind energy. 77% of Indians think that solar is a clean source of electricity, and most also think that wind (64%), and hydroelectric dams (56%) are clean. By contrast, majorities say that oil (76%), coal (68%), and nuclear (57%) are polluting sources of electricity. Opinions are split on whether natural gas is clean or polluting (45% clean, 45% polluting). 36% of Indians say they have “never heard of” global warming. However, when given a short definition, 84% of Indians say global warming is happening. Only 15% of Indians have an air conditioner in their household, although 27% say their household has an air cooler.
From Silence to Whisper: Climate Change in U.S. News Media, 1984–2025, Lee et al., OSF Preprints
News media shape public perceptions of issue importance, yet the position of climate change within the broader media landscape over time remains poorly understood. The authors conducted a large-scale content analysis of 6.4 million articles published by five major U.S. news outlets spanning 1984 to 2025. Using large language models (e.g., GPT-4o-mini), they classified each article across 16 news topics and identified climate change references. Over four decades, climate change comprised just 0.55% of all news coverage—one-thirty-sixth the attention devoted to sports and entertainment. Change-point detection identified two structural shifts that elevated baseline coverage: one in late 2006 and another in early 2021, coinciding with major political and cultural developments. Notably, once elevated, baseline coverage did not return to prior levels despite subsequent political shifts that introduced uncertainty around climate discourse. However, the integration of climate change across news domains remains highly uneven. Climate references are concentrated in environmental reporting while nearly absent from domains such as health and social justice—topics through which the public experiences climate impacts in daily life. Analysis of event-driven coverage revealed that international climate conferences (COP events) produced only transient spikes, while major hurricanes generated no detectable increase in climate reporting. These findings suggest that despite gradual progress, climate change has yet to achieve the cross-domain media presence commensurate with its significance as a societal challenge.
130 articles in 63 journals by 829 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Arctic sea ice decline, increasing successive sudden stratospheric warmings and cold northern hemisphere continents, Rao et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03604-x
Detected impacts of atmospheric rivers on marine heatwaves, Hu et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-74249-9
How ‘balcony solar’ could help fight rising utility costs
Posted on 17 June 2026 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Ben Tracy, Climate Central
If you feel like your electricity bill just keeps climbing, you aren’t imagining it. Since 2020, U.S. residential energy prices have surged by about 30%, making power the largest household energy expense behind gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
But for residents like Alex Curtis, the days of feeling powerless against rising costs are coming to an end. Curtis is waging a war on his electric bill, and his new weapon of choice is a lightweight, thin-film solar panel.
“Oh, it’s super light too,” Curtis remarked as he unboxed the kit on the balcony of his condo in Sunnyvale, California. It weighs just about 10 pounds.
The ‘plug-and-play’ revolution
The setup is deceptively simple: you hang the panel on a balcony or prop it up in a backyard and plug it directly into a standard wall outlet.
“I did some rough math and this might save me like $30 to $50 a month,” Curtis said.
The magic happens behind the scenes. Once plugged in, a small inverter syncs the solar energy with the home’s existing electrical infrastructure. It took about 15 minutes to get it all set up. Bright Saver’s Rupert Mayer then pointed to a light on the inverter: “Ah, here it is, it’s blue.”
“This is it. Easy,” Curtis replied. Within minutes, he was generating his own clean energy. He estimates it will be enough to power an appliance like his refrigerator.
Fact brief - Does solar energy need subsidies to compete with fossil fuels?
Posted on 16 June 2026 by Sue Bin Park
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Does solar energy need subsidies to compete with fossil fuels?
Unsubsidized utility-scale solar is now generally cheaper than building fossil fuel power plants.
Costs are often compared using “levelized cost of energy,” the average lifetime cost to build and run a power plant divided by the electricity it produces. A 2025 analysis estimates the mean LCOE of utility-scale solar at about $58 per megawatt-hour without subsidies, compared to $79 for new natural gas plants and $128 for new coal. The International Energy Agency reports solar energy is the cheapest source of new electricity generation in most parts of the world.
Solar costs have fallen sharply over the past decade as panel prices have dropped and the industry has grown. Subsidies can further lower costs, but solar is not dependent on them to compete with fossil fuels.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.
Sources
International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2020
Lazard Lazard Releases 2025 Levelized Cost of Energy+ Report
Reuters Around 90% of renewables cheaper than fossil fuels worldwide, IRENA says
Scientific American Wind and Solar Energy Are Cheaper Than Electricity from Fossil-Fuel Plants
Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles
Please use this form to provide feedback about this fact brief. This will help us to better gauge its impact and usability. Thank you!
Plateauing CO2 emissions have slowed atmospheric growth
Posted on 15 June 2026 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink
I’ve often come across graphs on social media showing atmospheric CO2 concentrations over time, with various dates of climate agreements highlighted. Shared by doomers and skeptics alike, they are used to argue that the rise of CO2 concentrations is inexorable and has not (or perhaps cannot) be slowed by actions we take.
On the other hand global CO2 emissions – the very precursors to those concentrations – have largely plateaued. After increasing by more than 20% in the 2000s, CO2 emissions today are a mere 3% higher than they were in 2013. This plateau has been driven in part by a rapid expansion of clean energy globally, with spending on clean energy rising from around $600 billion in 2020 to $2.3 trillion in 2025. At the same time we’ve seen notable reductions in land use emissions associated with reduced rates of deforestation in countries like Brazil.
2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #24
Posted on 14 June 2026 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Change Impacts (7 articles)
- What happens when the world`s breadbaskets start failing simultaneously? The Conversation, Ekamjot Dhillon, Jun 07, 2026.
- This 1,000-year-old pine tree`s protector fears changing weather patterns Mayors from around the world gathered last week in Huangshan to discuss how to protect their cities from climate change and overtourism. NBC News World News, Jennifer Jett, Jun 07, 2026.
- `Severe` stress on oceans as rate of sea level rise doubles in 10 years, UN warns Global effort needed to limit effects of pollution, industrial fishing and climate crisis, World Ocean Assessment says. The Guardian, Karen McVeigh, Jun 08, 2026.
- Climate change has already made Australians in one state much poorer, and more`s to come Researchers ask ''“What would the Australian state of New South Wales economy look like today if historical emissions of greenhouse gases had not caused climate change?'' English, Timothy Neal, Senior lecturer in Economics and the Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney, Ben Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Director of the Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney, Jun 09, 2026.
- Four days of extreme rain in Indonesia killed 7% of world`s rarest great apes, study finds Critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan population falls after heavy rain and landslides, fuelled by climate crisis, in North Sumatra The Guardian, Katie Ward, Jun 10, 2026.
- How Climate Change is Making Your Life More Expensive Extreme weather driven by climate change is pushing up prices for everyone. TIME, Simmone Shah, Jun 11, 2026.
- Millions of homes in London, Essex and Kent at risk of sinking as UK heats up Hotter and drier weather in the UK means the ground underneath homes could shrink in a process known as subsidence, dragging foundations down, according to the British Geological Survey (BGS). The Independent News, Nicole Wootton-Cane, Jun 11, 2026.
Climate Science and Research (5 articles)
- The weather and climate science AI revolution isn`t revolutionary Machine learning has its limits—how is it being used? Ars Technica, Scott K. Johnson, Jun 08, 2026.
- Ocean monitoring is in trouble: without the US, it`s up to Europe and Asia to avoid losing sight of the world`s deep-sea ecosystems The world relies on a modest number of countries to keep watch over the ocean and that arrangement is starting to fail; Europe and Asia must now decide whether to let the system unravel, or to take it up together. English, Sabrina Speich, John Abraham, Kevin Trenberth, Lijing Cheng, Jun 09, 2026.
- Plateauing CO2 emissions have slowed atmospheric growth CO2 concentrations have continued to increase – but more slowly than they otherwise would have. The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather, Jun 09, 2026.
- Inside the campaign to discredit a key climate science report An emerging field of research that can measure how much climate change has worsened individual disasters is under attack by friends of the fossil fuel industry, with billions of dollars at stake. Politico, Corbin Hiar, Lesley Clark and Chelsea Harvey, Jun 11, 2026.
- The Climate Change Culprits Not Addressed by Global Policy A new paper suggests that 15 percent of human-driven global warming has come from indirectly created greenhouse gases, off the books from current control plans. Inside Climate News, Nina Sablan, Jun 12, 2026.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #24 2026
Posted on 11 June 2026 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Emergence of Uncompensable Heat Stress During Monsoon Season in India, Chuphal et al., AGU Advances
Uncompensable heat stress (UHS), characterized by the loss of homeostasis due to excessive environmental thermal loading, causes substantial heat-related health risks in India. However, the spatial and seasonal heterogeneity, as well as temporal changes of UHS in India remain poorly understood. Using observations, reanalysis data, and climate model projections, we highlight the surge of UHS during the monsoon season (July–October) as the climate warms. In the observed period (1979–2021), the frequency and area affected by UHS have increased significantly across India. The observed UHS is more prevalent in summer (March–June) and affects 8% of India, whereas only 1% of the country is affected in the monsoon season. The summer UHS is also more strongly associated with annual heat-related mortality (R2 = 0.38). However, the monsoon season (July-October) UHS, predominantly characterized by hot-humid conditions, is projected to increase rapidly with climate warming and affect nearly equivalent areas of the country as the summer season (60% in summer and 53% in the monsoon season) under 2°C warming relative to the preindustrial period. This will create long-lasting UHS across both seasons, posing critical challenges to public health, labor productivity, and climate resilience in densely populated and vulnerable regions.
Brief communication: Sea-level projections, adaptation planning, and actionable science, Lipscomb et al., cryosphere
As climate scientists seek to deliver actionable science for adaptation planning, there are risks in using novel results to inform decision-making. Premature acceptance may lead to maladaptation, practitioner confusion, and “whiplash”. We propose that scientific claims should be considered actionable (i.e., sufficiently accepted to support near-term adaptation action) only after meeting a confidence threshold based on the strength of evidence as evaluated by a diverse group of scientific experts. We discuss an influential study that projected rapid sea-level rise from Antarctic ice-sheet retreat but in our view was not actionable. We recommend regular, transparent communications between scientists and practitioners to support the use of actionable science.
Hello world! An interdisciplinary climate modelling course, Proske & Staab, Geoscience Communication
Climate models are not just physics translated into computer code. They are powerful actors influencing and influenced by humans. Thus modelers need to learn and modelling courses need to teach not only the techniques of numerical discretisation and the physical understanding of the climate system, but also the underlying motivations, the uncertainties and the societal embededness of the modelling approach. Following a design-based research approach, this study develops a 50 h long course at Bachelor level that aims to teach students such interdisciplinary perspectives. With a reflective open-ended exercise, we elicit students' learning process through challenging climate modelling topics. We find that the students learn to appreciate the complexity of climate models and the intricacies of scientific practice itself, highlighting for example the role of values in science. The exercise reveals few misconceptions and no major hurdles in the students' learning that may have been expected from the interdisciplinary nature of the material. We thus conclude that the course is a practice-proven approach to teaching the physical basis of climate modelling as well as its critical reflection.
Rapid artificial intelligence deployment increases near-term pressure on global carbon budgets, Charabi, Communications Earth & Environment
Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius depends on cumulative carbon dioxide emissions, not only on whether annual emissions eventually balance. Artificial intelligence is increasingly promoted as a tool for reducing emissions, but its supporting digital infrastructure produces emissions before many system-level benefits are realized. Here, we evaluate this timing mismatch using a probabilistic numerical cumulative carbon accounting model calibrated to International Energy Agency artificial-intelligence and energy scenarios through 2035. The model combines operational emissions, embodied emissions, and delayed system-level savings. Across 10,000 Monte Carlo realizations, the accelerated Lift-Off pathway yields a median cumulative carbon debt of 2.85 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide before annual savings exceed annual infrastructure-related emissions in late 2031. Across scenarios, the carbon imbalance varies with deployment speed, grid decarbonization, and the coupling between infrastructure growth and mitigation-relevant applications. These results indicate that rapid artificial-intelligence deployment can increase near-term pressure on the remaining 1.5 degrees Celsius carbon budget.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Temperature Check 2025–26, The Center for Climate Journalism and Communication, University of Southern California
Even though fewer Americans now hear about global warming and climate change through news, newspapers are still the top source of information for climate communicators. Climate communicators still prefer LinkedIn as their go-to social media platform for climate information, followed by Instagram and BlueSky. The use of X/Twitter for engaging in climate media continues to drop even more among climate communicators. Climate communicators are most concerned about the lack of climate action, global warming and the health impacts of climate change this year. Yet, the authors' survey shows climate communicators are also increasingly avoiding terms and phrases such as “climate change” and “global warming,” likely due to increasing politicization of the terms as well as pushback from the government as well as the public.
Climate Change in the American Mind: Politics & Policy, Spring 2026, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University
With the primaries in the 2026 midterm elections underway, the authors found that 58% of registered voters prefer to vote for a candidate for public office who supports action on global warming, while 14% prefer to vote for a candidate who opposes action. 42% would like to hear from political candidates more often about efforts to reduce global warming, while 23% would like to hear about this less often. 31% will only vote for a congressional candidate who supports increasing the use of renewable energy, while 7% will only vote for a candidate who supports decreasing the use of renewable energy. 25% will only vote for a candidate who supports decreasing the use of fossil fuels, while 14% will only vote for a candidate who supports increasing the use of fossil fuels.
161 articles in 66 journals by 1249 contributing authors
This edition includes an unusually large number of articles, with some being rather old. This is a result of our correcting a bibliographic database query problem. In the interest of completeness of our internal database wer're integrating older items affected by this quirk. This edition takes a large initial bite out of the backlog and we'll then will meter out the remainder over the coming few weeks.
Physical science of climate change, effects
Atlantic multidecadal variability amplifies decadal variability in the Kuroshio–Oyashio Extension region under global warming, Wang et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03750-2
Constraints on Climate Change Stabilization Based on Observations of Earth's Energy Imbalance, Douville & Allan, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl121056
June update: Help still needed to get translations prepared for our website relaunch!
Posted on 10 June 2026 by BaerbelW
This updated blog post is a call for help to get our translations ready for our planned website relaunch. If you are a native speaker of any of the listed languages and if the tasks described below are up your alley, please let us know by filling out this Google form. Here is the list of languages we still need help with as of Jun 6, 2026: Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Thai.
Translations have made Skeptical Science rebuttals accessible to people all over the world. All told, we have published almost 1,100 rebuttal translations in 25 languages, created by generous volunteers since 2009. The number of translations for each language varies greatly from 1 to 213 depending on language but most languages feature between 10 and 60 translations at the moment. As we mentioned in our annual review article for 2025, we've been working on a complete relaunch of our website. While the actual launch is still a few months away, we recently realized that some preparatory work will be needed to update and add information to the existing translations.
Why we need your help
On the current website, the setup for translations was created when there was only one rebuttal version in English. Later we introduced advanced, intermediate and basic rebuttal treatments, but translations were never adapted to that. The new website will however offer the option to create all levels of translated rebuttals - as long as a counterpart already exists in English. Likewise, "one liners" - short summaries of what the science says - were introduced for translations later but were mostly left empty unless new translations were created. For translations, we also only have one title while the English version has both a myth and a science title, which will be used on different screens and for different purposes on the new website.
With all of this in mind we ask for your help, as we can only do this for a few languages with our own resources and a few currently active volunteer translators. Unfortunately, we have no translators working on translations for most languages at the moment and it's highly unlikely that volunteers who were creating many translations in several languages 15 years ago are still available today (we tried to contact them but a good number of email-addresses bounced). We're therefore counting on fresh recruits to bridge our gap.
The tasks at hand for existing rebuttal translations
For this exercise, we do not intend to update translations across the board in order to for example bring them up to date with the English originals. A comprehensive update will be a mountain of work, better done when the revamped translation admin system is available after re-launch. For the smaller and immediate task of making our current content ready for the new website, I have set up a Google sheet listing all the translations where some information is missing and needs to be filled in. I'll share an editable link once you've signed up for the task, but you can take a look at how all this shakes out in this preview of the spreadsheet.
Update June 6, 2026: As it's often easier to start with some information than "white space", columns have been added to provide Google translate suggestions for the current rebuttal title and the one liner. If these are fine, you can simply copy and paste the translation instead of manually translating it yourself.
Translations for which the currently missing information cannot be provided will most likely be migrated as unpublished, because the information displayed on the new website would otherwise be at least confusing if not misleading. That's certainly not what we want to start out with, but it's also a conundrum because shrinking our valuable content is also very undesirable!
Screenshot showing a snippet of the spreadsheet - clicking on it opens a preview in a new tab.
How many people does heat actually kill?
Posted on 9 June 2026 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
You have likely seen a headline like this: 62,000 people died from record-breaking heat in Europe:
It’s a striking number. It’s also not clear what it means. Is this the number of people killed by extreme heat? Or climate change’s contributions to the extreme heat? Or the number of deaths above what we would expect in a normal summer? Or something else.
This matters a lot. If we want to accurately communicate the impact of climate change on human mortality, we need to be precise about what we’re actually counting.
A graduate student and I just published a paper on this in GeoHealth (link), using heat-related mortality in Texas to demonstrate the issue. Here’s what we found.
the basic picture: a u-shaped curve
The relationship between daily average temperature and daily mortality is a U-shaped curve. The temperature at which the minimum number of deaths occur, often called the optimal temperature (abbreviated OT)1, is around 20°C (70°F) in most places. Mortality goes up as the temperature departs from the OT towards either hotter or colder temperatures.
This temperature-related mortality curve is calculated statistically by looking at how total (non-accidental) deaths vary with temperature. This produces curves like the one above.
Check out the brand-new hurricane ‘cone of uncertainty’ graphics arriving this season
Posted on 8 June 2026 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson
It might have seemed exotic when it first appeared, but the forecast “cone of uncertainty” used by the NOAA/NWS National Hurricane Center (NHC) is now a familiar part of tropical cyclone readiness in U.S. states and territories. For 2026, NHC has made a couple of key tweaks to its standard cone product. It’s also testing an expanded version of the cone – one made feasible by a new way of understanding how and where forecast errors arise.
Since its debut in 2002, the cone has become what a University of Miami writer called “arguably [the center’s] most iconic graphic,” a mainstay of TV coverage and weather apps. Prior to the cone, hurricane maps simply showed a line depicting the official multi-day forecast for the storm center, as issued every six hours by NHC. Experts urged the public not to “focus on the skinny line,” keeping in mind that a hurricane’s path can easily deviate from the forecast track and that impacts will typically extend far beyond that center.
When you see a cone graphic, that ‘skinny line’ may or may not appear (NHC provides both versions), but the cone itself has gone a long way to fix the skinny-line problem.
However, just as a hurricane’s impacts do not just lie along a narrow line, a hurricane’s damage doesn’t stop when it comes ashore. Some of the worst U.S. hurricane disasters in recent years have occurred well inland, including billions of dollars in wind-driven destruction across Georgia in 2018’s Michael, and the catastrophic, deadly flooding from 2024’s Helene, which killed more than 100 people in and around western North Carolina.
Up through last year, NHC’s cone graphics only showed watches and warnings along the coastline. Starting this year, the full extent of inland watches and warnings will be portrayed. In the example shown in Fig. 1 below, the revised graphics make it crystal clear that the hurricane warning for 2024’s Milton extended almost completely across the entire Florida Peninsula, including the Orlando area.
Another improvement shown in Fig. 1 is the addition of a crosshatched area to denote locations that are under both a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning. It’s an important way to show that being in a tropical storm warning doesn’t mean you are necessarily off the hook for potential hurricane-level impacts.
Figure 1. A comparison of the original forecast cone for Hurricane Milton issued at 4 a.m. CDT October 8, 2024 (left) and how the same forecast would look in the revised cone graphic being used this year (right). The area crosshatched in blue and pink lines is under both a hurricane watch (pink) and a tropical storm warning (blue). The revised cone graphic will also use gray shading for the entire length of the cone, rather than for only the first three days of the five-day forecast period. (Image credit: NOAA/NWS/NHC)
2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #23
Posted on 7 June 2026 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Policy and Politics (8 articles)
- Scilencing The Trump Administration would just as soon we didn't know stuff, especially about our planet The Crucial Years, Bill McKibben, May 31, 2026.
- Companies No Longer Report Greenhouse Gas Emissions And Climate Risk Progressive lawmakers and environmental groups strongly condemned the decision, arguing that it leaves investors in the dark regarding trillions of dollars in hidden climate liabilities and systemic economic risks. Climate News Now, Climate News Now, May 31, 2026.
- DOE restarts home efficiency rebates, and electrification is the biggest loser New rules for the $8.8 billion in program funding no longer promote electric home heating. The Daily Climate, Dan Gearino, Jun 02, 2026.
- Dismay as Trump officials to dismantle key ocean monitoring system Ocean Observatories Initiative, $368m network that has provided crucial climate data, latest victim of Trump cuts The Guardian, Maya Yang, Jun 02, 2026.
- USDA revamp of `climate smart` program left farmers reeling With dubious DOGE savings, the agency has left farmers with fewer tools to address the climate crisis. Civil Eats, Lisa Held, Jun 04, 2026.
- The wasting disease threatening US science and ‘Patient Earth’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scienctists, Benjamin Santer, June 4, 2026.
- California and New York weaken climate rules as red states ramp up green energy Republican-led states growing renewable capabilities at faster rate as Texas emerges as clean-energy leader The Guardian, Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman, Jun 04, 2026.
- Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world `flying blind` Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will ‘severely degrade’ the accuracy of weather predictions Environment The Guardian, Karen McVeigh, Jun 05, 2026.
Climate Science and Research (7 articles)
- Current and Future Changes in Earth's Outgoing Infrared Spectrum Study finds fingerprint of global warming on infrared energy spectrum emitted by Earth. Geophysical Research Letters, Shaw et al., May 30, 2026.
- Antarctic climate change is coming: this will help us prepare Dr Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, May 30, 2026.
- Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System The $368 million network of instruments collecting data in both the Atlantic and Pacific has been critical to climate and ocean research. New York Times, Eric Niiler, June 1, 2026.
- Climate-based tool predicts coral bleaching months in advance, offering critical lead time for reef protection Phys.org, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jun 02, 2026.
- Extreme weather is making Antarctic research harder, but new technology is providing some answers - new study The Conversation, Katharine Hendry, Jun 02, 2026.
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23 2026 Skeptical Science's weekly survey of newly published academic climate research and select government/NGO climate-related reports and analysis. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Jun 04, 2026.
- Satellite images reveals mangroves rebounding worldwide - but here's why they could still 'drown' A new study finds mangrove forests are no longer shrinking worldwide and offering hope for coastal protection and climate resilience, but sea level rise remains a threat. Live Science, Kenna Hughes-Castleberry, Jun 04, 2026.
SkS Housekeeping: Updating the Comments Policy
Posted on 5 June 2026 by SkS-Team
From time to time, we announce housekeeping items that cover various changes in the Skeptical Science (SkS) web site. Today, it's an important one for all people who are posting comments on our articles: an update to the Comments Policy.
Reasons for the Updates
The Comments Policy is an important document at SkS: not only does it provide guidance for the behaviour of commenters, but it also provides guidance to the moderators on how to deal with comment threads that are starting to go off the rails. The moderation team strives to apply a reasonably uniform level of moderation, and the Comments Policy is the set of rules we follow.
We have been discussing some updates internally over the past few weeks, and now it is time to have the changes go live. The changes have been prompted by a few recent comments that started to use AI to generate text. (We'll stick with the formal definition of AI as "Artificial Intelligence", although I am sure that readers will have their own favorite interpretation.) Moderators have been asking commenters to limit their use of AI, but there is nothing in the previous Comments Policy related to AI. That is now changing.
Essentially all of the previous Comments Policy (archived here) is still in force. There are a few changes in wording, and the order has changed slightly, but if it was in the old Comments Policy, it is in the new one. The updated Comments Policy groups the various policies under six headings, as follows:
- Purpose
- All comments must be on topic
- Speak for yourself and back up your argument
- Civil Conduct
- Account creation and usage
- Summary
The new material falls under the "Speak for yourself and back up your argument" heading. The main text in that section talks about the importance of providing links to relevant information, explaining what the reader should find at those sources, etc. SkS is about the science of climate change, and scientific discussion expects references to relevant material and proper citation of sources. Two items from the old Comments Policy are located here: "No sloganeering", and "No link or picture only". But there are two new items of importance, related to copying large blocks of text or images from other sources. The first item covers copying from regular sources such as journals, reports, web pages, etc. The second specifically covers the use of AI-generated text.
Using AI in comments
In essence, when you use AI to generate text and want to add it to a comment, you are no longer speaking for yourself - you are quoting a different source. Proper scientific citation rules require that you indicate that you are quoting a different source, and provide a reference to what that source is. To quote from the updated policy: "Quoting or copying material from other sources without a proper citation constitutes plagiarism, which is not allowed."
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23 2026
Posted on 4 June 2026 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Historical Volcanic Eruptions Mitigated the Expected Rapid Arctic Sea Ice Decline Prior to 2000, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters
Arctic sea ice has declined at sharply contrasting rates over the past four decades—modest before 2000 and rapid thereafter. Using observational and model evidence, we show that large tropical volcanic eruptions can trigger decade-long Arctic sea ice recoveries, and that without the 1982 El Chichón and 1991 Pinatubo eruptions, Arctic sea ice would have declined approximately 1.5 times faster before 2000. We further show a model's sensitivity to volcanic aerosol forcing scales with its sensitivity to GHG forcing across CMIP6 models, offering a new strategy to identify models with realistic climate response to radiative forcing. Following this, a selected subgroup of models that accurately simulate long-term warming trend and decade-long post-Pinatubo recovery project ice-free Arctic summer up to 20 years earlier than the full ensemble. These findings underscore the critical, yet underappreciated, importance of evaluating climate models against anthropogenic and volcanic forcing when projecting the future of Arctic sea ice.
Legacy wells supporting net zero by screening carbon storage and geothermal potential in the United States, Rajput et al., Communications Earth & Environment
Depleted oil and gas reservoirs provide an opportunity to repurpose underperforming wells and reuse existing subsurface infrastructure to support Net Zero transitions. Here we present a United States wide screening analysis of underperforming wells to estimate upper bound technical potential for carbon storage and geothermal heat. Using public well inventories, county level carbon removal cost datasets, national scale storage resource maps, and geothermal resource data, and accounting for well integrity attrition and field scale constraints, we estimate carbon storage potential of approximately 0.024–1.17 gigatonnes per year and geothermal heat potential of approximately 1–35 gigawatts thermal across high potential regions. Avoided drilling and deferred abandonment may indicate upper bound cost benefits, although repurposing costs remain site-specific. Key constraints include well integrity and cooling during injection; a retrofittable downhole choke is evaluated to mitigate this during startup. These results highlight conditional potential and the need for site-specific assessment.
Northern permafrost represents a limit on the northward shift of climatically feasible agricultural frontiers under future warming, Xu et al., Communications Earth & Environment
Global warming is expected to shift crop suitability northward, but the role of permafrost remains unclear. Here we integrate permafrost degradation impacts to project the suitability of seven major crops across the Northern Hemisphere (30°N–83°N). By the end of the century, the northern boundary of crop climatic suitability zones shifts northward by ~331 km and ~739 km under the SSP1–2.6 and SSP5–8.5 scenarios, respectively. Considering this shift and permafrost degradation, zones with persistent near-surface permafrost remain limited (~5%) but vary widely (3–19%) across different permafrost degradation assumptions. By the end of the century, newly emerging frontiers of climatically feasible agriculture reach 4.86 and 11.64 million km² under SSP1–2.6 and SSP5–8.5, respectively, of which 29% and 18% may remain unsuitable for cultivation due to persistent permafrost thaw disturbances. Our results indicate that permafrost is a non-negligible constraint on the northward shift of climatically feasible agricultural frontiers.
Caught in the Fray. How Climate Scientists Navigate the Public Sphere, Abramov et al., Environmental Communication
Climate scientists are increasingly drawn into a polarized public sphere, challenging relations between science and society. In this study, we interviewed thirty-five climate scientists – diverse in discipline and seniority – working in the Netherlands about their perceptions of, and experiences with public engagement. Based on our empirical material, we construct an analytical framework with a politization and participation axis on which we position their statements. Demarcating their public activities along these dimensions, climate scientists highlight concerns for scientific credibility, political efficacy, normative responsibility and individual capacity. While there is a clear opposition between those compelled to advocate for stringent climate policies or tackle misinformation and those who believe their main role is to provide solid knowledge and leave the normative choices to activists or politicians, only few scientists collaborate with stakeholders. Letting different stakeholders speak and participate in knowledge productions, we argue, may provide a solution to the science vs politics stranglehold.
Widespread intensification of global river hydrograph flashiness under climate change, Zhu et al., Communications Earth & Environmen
Flooding poses an increasing threat to lives and infrastructure worldwide, yet how river flow responds under climate change remains uncertain. Here we assess future changes in river hydrograph flashiness, defined as the rate of increase in streamflow normalized by time and drainage area, using a numerical hydrological model driven by multiple climate model projections. We analyze 520 major river basins globally. Results show that flashiness is projected to increase by about 14%, 30%, and 79% by the late twenty-first century under low-, intermediate-, and high-emission scenarios, respectively, relative to 2014. Increases are greater in low-latitude basins than in high-latitude regions. These changes are mainly associated with larger differences between peak and base flow and shorter times to reach peak discharge. Overall, our findings suggest that river floods are likely to become faster and more intense in a warming climate, posing growing challenges for flood risk management and infrastructure design.
From this week's government/NGO section:
UPDATE: Colorado River Basin Storage Continues Slide Toward System Crash, Castle et al., Getches-Wilkinson Center, University of Colorado Law School
If the Colorado River Basin (Basin) experiences another dry year, similar to Water Year 2025, it is likely that reasonably accessible storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead would be mostly depleted, even if consumptive uses and losses are at or near historic lows. Run-of-the-river operations would shortly ensue. This would be an outcome with devastating consequences. In contrast, if next year is very wet, similar to Water Year 2023, the Basin’s largest federal reservoirs would recover somewhat, but would provide only about two years of cushion before we find ourselves again in the same position we are in today, unless consumptive use decreases further. This recovery would be welcome but would provide only a brief reprieve from crisis. Both scenarios demonstrate the need to adopt significant additional measures to permanently decrease consumptive uses across the entire Basin.
Americans Are Increasingly Pessimistic About Avoiding the Worst Effects of Climate Change, Brian Kennedy and Isabelle Pula, Pew Research Center
About six-in-ten Americans say countries around the world, including the U.S., will not do enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Among Democrats, this share has increased from 51% in 2022 to 69% in 2026. About half of U.S. adults say tech companies can do a lot to address climate change, but few expect technology to actually solve problems caused by climate change in the future. A majority of Americans, especially Democrats, say the federal government is doing too little on climate change. This overall share is slightly higher than it was during the Biden administration.
117 articles in 63 journals by 940 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Nobody knows the future of energy
Posted on 3 June 2026 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
I’ve long been struck by how hard it is to predict the evolution of our energy system, even a few years in advance, never mind 25 or 30 years. I still remember the “peak oil” craze in the mid 2000s, when people were telling me the end of oil was nigh. It sounded convincing right up until it turned out to be wrong.
In this post, let me show you how bad previous predictions have been for the electricity sector.
evolution of our energy system in 6 charts
Each plot below shows annual predictions of how a particular source of electricity will evolve as well as what actually happened. The data come from the Energy Information Administration and cover the U.S. electricity sector.
We’ll start with coal. In the first plot, the black line shows actual U.S. coal-fired electricity generation. The colored lines are predictions made each year since 2008.
In 2008, coal was expected to produce increasing amounts of electricity into the future. Instead, it immediately started to decline and it took until 2023 before the EIA began to predict a long-term decline in coal, despite the fact that coal had been declining for 15 years.
Natural gas, by contrast, has generated an increasing share of U.S. electricity. This is largely due to the tidal wave of cheap natural gas from fracking. The predictions, on the other hand, did not anticipate this.
Fact brief - Do electric vehicles almost always have a lower carbon footprint than gasoline-powered cars?
Posted on 2 June 2026 by Sue Bin Park
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Do electric vehicles almost always have a lower carbon footprint than gasoline-powered cars?
The EPA, IPCC, and many independent studies have found that electric vehicles have lower lifetime emissions than gas-powered vehicles in nearly all cases.
“Lifetime” calculations include emissions released during EV manufacture, as well as the generation of electricity used to charge the car. An average 300-mile range EV produces less than half the lifetime emissions of a conventional 30 miles per gallon car.
This is mainly because EVs are significantly more energy efficient than gasoline cars: over 77% of electricity input is converted to power at the wheels, compared to a conversion of 12-30% of energy in gasoline to wheel power. Meanwhile, the lack of tailpipe emissions offsets an electric sedan or SUV’s initial manufacture emissions within just 1.5-2 years of regular use.
As the U.S. power grid becomes increasingly renewables-based, EVs’ emissions superiority vis-a-vis gas-powered vehicles will continue to grow.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.
Sources
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Electric Vehicle Myths
U.S. Department of Energy Electric Vehicle Benefits and Considerations
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Chapter 2: Emissions trends and drivers
U.S. Department of Energy All-Electric Vehicles
Environmental Research Letters The role of pickup truck electrification in the decarbonization of light-duty vehicles
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Power Sector Evolution
Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles
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Solar, wind, and EVs have knocked out a doomsday climate scenario
Posted on 1 June 2026 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
Thanks to the transition from fossil fuels to clean technologies, what used to be considered the worst-case climate change scenario now appears to be outside the realm of plausibility, climate scientists said in a recent study.
That study made headlines in May when President Donald Trump falsely claimed that climate scientists had admitted that their projections had been wrong, a claim akin to an anti-vaxxer gloating that the official end of the pandemic proved that COVID was never a problem.
And the study contained sobering news: The best-case climate scenario is close to slipping out of reach, and a business-as-usual scenario is still a very dangerous one, with high risks of widespread species extinctions, extreme heat-related illnesses and deaths, and expanding vector-borne diseases like malaria.
World makes progress on climate change
Scientists developed the worst-case climate change scenario known as RCP8.5 nearly 20 years ago.
A 2010 paper described RCP8.5 as representing the 90th percentile of plausible climate-warming emissions, cautioning that the RCPs “are neither forecasts nor policy recommendations, but were chosen to map a broad range of climate outcomes.” A 2011 paper summarizing RCP8.5 noted that this scenario envisioned a world with high population growth, slow improvements in energy efficiency, and a heavy reliance on fossil fuels, including a nearly tenfold increase in coal consumption.
Although the U.S. government under Trump favors high birth rates, has dismantled energy efficiency programs, and supports coal and other fossil fuels, policies implemented around the world over the past decade have shifted us away from the characteristics of RCP8.5, leading scientists to say it is now implausible.
Spurred by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and dramatically falling costs of clean energy technologies, many countries have increasingly transitioned away from climate-warming fossil fuels. All global growth in electricity demand last year was met by clean sources – predominantly solar panels – European energy think tank Ember and the International Energy Agency recently reported.
Change in annual global electricity demand (blue line) and the amount met by fossil fuels (gray bars), solar power (dark green bars), and other clean sources (light green bars) between 2000 and 2025. (Graphic: Ember)
2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22
Posted on 31 May 2026 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Change Impacts (7 articles)
- Malnourished Gray Whales of the Eastern North Pacific Are in `Serious Trouble` The population has plummeted over the past seven years as climate change triggers mass starvation in warming Arctic waters. Inside Climate News, By Blaine Harden, May 24, 2026.
- An Unusually Early Heat Wave Breaks Temperature Records Across Western Europe 'This is an unprecedented event with a one in 1,000 chance of happening at this time of year based on the climate from 1979 to 2025 and virtually impossible in the preindustrial era,'' Christophe Cassou, a climate scientist, told Le Monde. Inside Climate News, Kiley Price, May 26, 2026.
- UK heatwave has `fingerprints of climate change all over it` It’s clearly exceptional when the May temperature record falls not once but twice in two days’ The Independent News, Nick Ferris, May 26, 2026.
- It's so friggin' hot Dr Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, May 26, 2026.
- `Mind-bogglingly crazy`: climate experts alarmed by deadly spring heatwaves searing Europe Scientists warn of ‘new reality’ of heat extremes that claim three times more lives than car crashes and 16 times as many as murderers The Guardian, Ajit Niranjan, May 27, 2026.
- Western Europe is roasting in unprecedented spring heat - and it`s not alone Climate scientist Christophe Cassou said the heat in France would have been virtually impossible in the preindustrial era. Yale Climate Connections, Bob Henson, May 27, 2026.
- An Arctic community on the climate front lines | Science The harsh realities of global warming are becoming difficult to ignore in Norway’s Longyearbyen Science, Sarah Boon, May 28, 2026.
Climate Education and Communication (5 articles)
- How the jet-setting commissaries of the climate change quango use dodgy statistics to peddle hysteria - and justify their own existence: MATT RIDLEY Op-ed is a display of classic climate-denier tactics intended to change the subject and swerve public attention from what's important. Mail Online, Matt Ridley, May 22, 2026.
- Twenty Years After His Film, Al Gore Tweaks the Climate Script Mr. Gore is still giving the slide show that ''An Inconvenient Truth''” was built around, but with changes that reflect a shift in the discussion of climate change. NYT, Chico Harlan, May 25, 2026.
- Which of your climate actions make the biggest difference? Here`s how to find out The Conversation, Charlotte A. Kukowski and Kimberly Nicholas, May 27, 2026.
- Translating Climate Awareness Into Action at New York High Schools State of the Planet, Emma Kyzivat, Aynsley Kretschmar and Laurel Zaima-Sheehy, May 28, 2026.
- Ask a Climate Therapist: Is it still `catastrophizing` if the threat is real? Psychotherapist Leslie Davenport breaks down some of the tools that can help manage anxiety in the face of mounting climate catastrophe. Grist, Leslie Davenport, May 29, 2026.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #22 2026
Posted on 28 May 2026 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Climate Change Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Schäfer et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Chang
Artificial intelligence (AI), and especially generative AI (GenAI), is rapidly reshaping climate change communication (CCC). Once dominated by news coverage and public campaigns, CCC now extends across scientists, NGOs, corporations, journalists, influencers, and citizens—all increasingly encountering and adopting AI tools. This article provides a comprehensive review of scholarship on the nexus of AI and CCC, synthesizing insights scattered across disciplines from social and computer science, and interdisciplinary fields like environmental and science studies. It identifies robust patterns alongside significant gaps, highlighting areas where future research is needed. Based on existing evidence, it shows that AI—as of now—functions less as a disruptive replacement of established communication and information-seeking practices rather than as an assistive layer in CCC: accelerating routine newsroom tasks, enabling personalized and multilingual outreach, and generating new textual, visual, and multimodal representations of climate change. Stakeholders use AI to monitor discourse, expose greenwashing, and broaden access to climate information, though systematic research on uptake and effects remains limited. Journalists experiment cautiously with AI, emphasizing human oversight, while influencers and content creators are understudied despite their growing role. The potential of AI-driven systems for fact-checking, policy analysis, and creative engagement has been explored, yet studies remain heavily English-centric and focused on text. Citizen studies reveal promises and risks: generative dialogues can reduce skepticism and foster engagement, but biases, misinformation, and equity concerns persist. Advancing the field requires comparative and interdisciplinary agendas that integrate computational and traditional methods, foreground transparency and inclusion, and address how AI can equitably support awareness, trust, and climate action.
Vacuuming the Sky? Metaphorical Framing in News Coverage of Carbon Dioxide Removal Methods, Bruggen et al., Environmental Communication
Discussions of proposed climate solutions, such as carbon dioxide removal (CDR), are multi-layered and contested. This study examines the role that metaphors play as frame devices in news coverage (2018–2024) about CDR. Using critical metaphor analysis, we examined 257 articles from major UK, US, and Canadian news outlets to identify and interpret contrasting metaphorical expressions from journalists and their sources, including industry, science, and civil society. We find that a wide range of source domains, including references to, e.g. historical events, household objects, crime, religion, and medical analogies, is used to metaphorically frame CDR. These metaphors reflect actors’ competing ideologies and interests, rooted in hopeful rational-optimist and socio-ecological visions. We also discuss how metaphor use could influence public engagement and policy and reflect on how language might oversimplify or obscure critical aspects of the technology.
Consensus Messaging Shifts Beliefs About Climate Change in a Field Experiment, Rode et al., Science Communication
Previous research on climate change consensus messaging has mostly taken place in controlled lab settings. In this field experiment, we engaged U.S. residents (N = 158) in brief doorstep conversations on climate change. Research assistants read a script about the scientific consensus (treatment) or basic facts about climate change (control) and then provided participants with a magnet containing the same information. The consensus message had a significant positive effect on consensus estimates (β = 0.45) and belief in climate change (β = 0.41), but not on other downstream attitudes or behavior. These results mostly align with theory and have implications for consensus messaging.
From this week's government/NGO section:
24/7 renewables. The economics of Firm Solar and Wind, Dardour et al., The International Renewable Energy Agency
The authors show that the cost of firm renewable electricity has declined rapidly across all major technologies and markets. In high-quality solar and wind resource regions, co-located hybrid systems can already deliver round-the-clock electricity at costs competitive with - and in many cases below - those of new fossil-fuel generation. China currently defines the global cost floor, while costs in Brazil, India, South Africa, Australia, and the Gulf region are declining rapidly towards fossil-fuel cost parity. The authors identify key drivers of firm renewable costs – technology performance, resource quality and system configuration – and examine the policy levers that are proving decisive in translating cost competitiveness into deployment at scale. They conclude that the technologies are maturing, the costs are falling and the commercial demand is growing. The pace at which firm renewable electricity is deployed will be among the most consequential determinants of the global energy transition in the decade ahead.
Climate Promises, Industry Handouts. Canada’s Fossil Fuel Funding in 2025, Environmental Defence Canada
The Government of Canada has provided at least $10.2 billion in fossil fuel subsidies and public financing in 2025. Since Environmental Defence began tracking fossil fuel subsidies in 2020, the federal government has provided at least $85.2 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. This figure includes government direct spending as well as public financing through Crown corporations, such as Export Development Canada. In addition to fossil fuel subsidies, the Government of Canada provided at least $405.53 million dollars in subsidies for carbon capture and fossil fuel hydrogen projects in 2025. These technologies have failed to deliver on their promises to reduce emissions and have instead locked in further fossil fuel production. Furthermore, this figure excludes the estimated cost of the carbon capture investment tax credit, which is estimated to cost Canadians up to $5.7 billion by 2028, and up to $12.4 billion by 2035. The changes introduced in the Budget 2025 could increase the cost to Canadians by an additional $3.75 billion. In 2025, the cost of pollution from oil and gas companies operating in Canada was an estimated $56.4 billion. This figure was calculated by taking the most recent oil and gas emissions figures and multiplying with the social cost of carbon. Climate pollution created by oil and gas companies has massive costs, including health costs, property damage from extreme weather events, and decreased agricultural productivity due to changing weather patterns. The social cost of carbon helps to estimate what those costs to society are.
76 articles in 46 journals by 755 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Intensified Stratosphere–Troposphere Ozone Transport over Asia under a High-End Climate Trajectory, Luo et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0426.1
