Arguments
Skeptical Science is partnering with 
The recent pause in Arctic sea-ice loss is natural variability on top of a long-term, human-driven decline.
Contrails have a simple explanation, but not everyone wants to believe it. Everyone has looked up at the clouds and seen faces, animals, objects. Human brains are hardwired for this kind of whimsy. But some people – perhaps a surprising number – look to the sky and see government plots and wicked deeds written there. Conspiracy theorists say that contrails – long streaks of condensation left by aircraft – are actually chemtrails, clouds of chemical or biological agents dumped on the unsuspecting public for nefarious purposes. Different motives are ascribed, from weather control to mass poisoning.
The chemtrails theory has circulated since 1996, when conspiracy theorists misinterpreted a U.S. Air Force research paper about weather modification, a valid topic of research. Social media and conservative news outlets have since magnified the conspiracy theory. One recent study notes that X, formerly Twitter, is a particularly active node of this “broad online community of conspiracy.”
I’m a communications researcher who studies conspiracy theories. The thoroughly debunked chemtrails theory provides a textbook example of how conspiracy theories work.
Boosted into the stratosphere
Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, whose podcast averages over a million viewers per episode, recently interviewed Dane Wigington, a longtime opponent of what he calls “geoengineering.” While the interview has been extensively discredited and mocked in other media coverage, it is only one example of the spike in chemtrail belief.
Although chemtrail belief spans the political spectrum, it is particularly evident in Republican circles. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has professed his support for the theory. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has written legislation to ban chemical weather control, and many state legislatures have done the same.
Online influencers with millions of followers have promoted what was once a fringe theory to a large audience. It finds a ready audience among climate change deniers and anti-deep state agitators who fear government mind control.
2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48
Posted on 30 November 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
International Climate Conferences and Agreements (8 articles)
- Bad COP Personal Blog, Michael E. Mann, Nov. 22, 2025.
- COP30: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Belém A voluntary plan to curb fossil fuels, a goal to triple adaptation finance and new efforts to “strengthen” climate targets have been launched at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil. Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief Staff, Nov 23, 2025.
- UN warns world losing climate battle but fragile Cop30 deal keeps up the fight Reaching agreement in divisive political landscape shows ‘climate cooperation is alive and kicking’, says UN climate chief. The Guardian, Damian Carrington, Oliver Milman, Jonathan Watts and Damien Gayle, Nov 23, 2025.
- The Guardian view on UN climate talks: they reveal how little time is left | Editorial Editorial: A fragile Cop30 consensus is a win. But only a real bargain between rich and poor nations can weather the climate shocks that are coming The Guardian, Editorial, Nov 24, 2025.
- I didn't wanna make a COP30 video Dr Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, Nov 24, 2025.
- Here are 3 big ideas to combat climate change, with or without COP As the U.N.’s COP30 meeting falls short, groups find ways to fight climate change on their own Science News, Carolyn Gramling, Nov 26, 2025.
- World off track on climate action amid fossil fuel crisis: Expert The United Nations climate talks in Brazil reached a subdued agreement recently that pledged more funding for countries to adapt to the wrath of extreme weather Latest News, Press Trust of India, Nov 27, 2025.
- Revealed: Leak casts doubt on COP30’s ‘informal list’ of fossil-fuel roadmap opponents A confused – and, at times, contradictory – story has emerged about precisely which countries and negotiating blocs were opposed to a much-discussed “roadmap” deal at COP30 on “transitioning away from fossil fuels”. Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief Team, Nov 28, 2025.
Climate Change Impacts (7 articles)
- Scorching Saturdays: The rising heat threat inside football stadiums Excessive heat and more frequent medical incidents at college football stadiums in the South could be a warning sign for universities across the country. Grist, Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News, Nov 24, 2025.
- Climate change could expand habitats for malaria mosquitoes, researchers warn Phys.org, University of Copenhagen, Nov 26, 2025.
- Emergency response needed to prevent climate breakdown, warn experts Scientists sounded the alarm on the dire consequences of continued inaction at a briefing in London, warning that we could be heading for "unprecedented societal and ecological collapse" New Scientist - Home, Michael LePage, Nov 27, 2025.
- Scientists warn half the world`s beaches could disappear Rising seas and human pressures are rapidly shrinking the world’s beaches and destabilizing the ecosystems that depend on them. Science Daily, undação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Nov 27, 2025.
- Africa`s forests transformed from carbon sink to carbon source, study finds Alarming shift since 2010 means planet’s three main rainforest regions now contribute to climate breakdown The Guardian, Jonathan Watts, Nov 28, 2025.
- Revealed: Europe`s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown Exclusive: UCL scientists find large swathes of southern Europe are drying up, with ‘far-reaching’ implications The Guardian, Rachel Salvidge, Nov 29, 2025.
- `We had to swim to safety. I didn`t think we would make it out alive`: the people fleeing climate breakdown - in pictures Photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer capture the families, farmers and fishers who have been forced to leave their homes by extreme weather – and the landscapes they left behind. Introduction by Dina Nayeri The Guardian, Dina Niyeri with Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer , Nov 29, 2025.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48 2025
Posted on 27 November 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Observed large-scale and deep-reaching compound ocean state changes over the past 60 years, Tan et al., Nature Climate Change
Multiple climate-related stressors affect the ocean, including warming, acidification, deoxygenation and variations in salinity, with profound effects on Earth system cycles, marine ecosystems and human well-being. Nevertheless, a global perspective on the combined impacts of these changes on both surface and subsurface ocean conditions remains unclear. Here, applying a time-of-emergence methodology to observed physical and biogeochemical variables, collectively referred to as compound climatic impact-drivers, we show individual and compound ocean state changes have become increasingly prominent globally over the past 60 years. In particular, observations show the simultaneous emergence of compound climatic impact-drivers in regions spanning the subtropical and tropical Atlantic, the subtropical Pacific, the Arabian Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. We highlight extensive exposure of different ocean layers to compound emergence, characterized by significant intensity, duration and magnitude. These results provide a comprehensive framework and perspective to illustrate the ocean’s vulnerability to pervasive and interconnected changes in a warming climate.
Growing Risk of Soil Salinization Linked to Soil Droughts in a Changing Climate, Li & Wang, Geophysical Research Letters
Soil salinity and soil drought are primary global threats to cultivated land and crop productivity, yet their interrelationships and responses to a changing climate remain unclear. This study investigates the global distribution and long-term trends of soil salinity, as well as its relationships with soil droughts from 1980 to 2018. Our findings reveal that 14.73% of global soils have experienced a significant increase in salinity. The increasing trend of soil salinity is closely linked to changes in soil drought patterns, particularly the increased total number of drought days. Critically, long-term drought events (>6 months) play a key role in the transition from non-saline to saline soil, setting the stage for the formation of saline soils in 6.78% of the world's dry regions. This study highlights a growing risk of soil salinization and provides critical insights for assessing soil vulnerability to degradation in the face of persistent droughts.
Visualizing Climate Change in an Era of A.I. Slop: How Chatbot Image Generator Models Distort the Climate Crisis in Public Imagination(s), Hopke, Emerging Media
Climate change has long been difficult to visualize, contributing to climate inaction. Critical visual methods are used to analyze the social constructions of climate change encoded within leading generative A.I. chatbot text-to-image large language models: OpenAI's DALL·E 3 and Google Gemini's Imagen 2 and Imagen 3. Synthetic data for two types of generative A.I. climate change imagery are examined: (1) still images generated using generic climate change prompts and (2) images generated about heat wave impacts on people. Findings show that polar bears are a consistent visual metaphor for the climate crisis in images created with DALL·E 3 and that the model distorts climate change extreme heat risks. Google Gemini's Imagen models generated more photorealistic climate visuals somewhat grounded in climate science with greater safeguards built-in for the generation of humanoid figures and depictions of human suffering. As this research shows, generative A.I. visual outputs are reflective of the biases actively encoded into text-to-image models through data training sets and programming decisions. It is argued that chatbot image generator models distort the climate crisis in public imaginations by replicating pre-existing visual (mis-)representations of climate risks.
Multifaceted polarization and information reliability in climate change discussions on social media platforms, Bassolas et al., Royal Society Open Science
Social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter play a key role in disseminating both reliable and unreliable information about climate change. This study analyses the topology of interactions in Twitter and their relation to cross-platform sharing, content discussions and emotional responses. We examined climate change discussions across four topics: the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Refugees and Doñana Natural Park. While retweets reinforce in-group cohesion in the form of echo chambers, inter-group exposure is significant through mentions, suggesting that exposure to opposing views intensifies polarization, rather than mitigates it. Ideological divides feature content differences accompanied by steeper negative sentiments, especially from right-leaning communities prone to share low-reliability information. We identified a topological and thematic alignment between platforms, indicating that ideological communities are interconnected across them. Our findings show that climate change polarization is multifaceted, involving ideological divides, structural isolation and emotional engagement. These results suggest that effective climate policy discussions must address the emotional and identity-driven nature of public discourse and seek strategies to bridge ideological divides.
From this week's government/NGO section:
A 2,900% Increase in Greenwash: Big Oil Targeted Brazil With Google Ads To Undermine COP30, Climate Action Against Disinformation, C3DS, and Climainfo
The authors analyze digital greenwashing by major oil companies, focusing on their use of Google Ads in the months leading up to COP30. Globally, oil company ads on Google spiked by 218% in October 2025, while ads targeting Brazil increased by 2,900%. The oil sector’s biggest users of Google Ads saw particularly large increases: Saudi Aramco expanded its adverts by 469.2% month-on-month in October, TotalEnergies by 106.5%, and ExxonMobil by 156.3%. BP made the biggest jump in adverts bought at 1,369.2%, from a low base. For adverts shown in Brazil, Petrobras stands out, accounting for almost 70% of total Google Ads, with 665 published in 2025, a considerable increase from the four months before the COP30. To combat the oil industry's disinformation strategy, it is essential to increase regulatory intervention, including a potential ban on fossil fuel advertising, as well as enhance enforcement and improve transparency and data on digital greenwashing.
Counting the Cost: Quantifying the Rising Impacts of Heat-Related Productivity Losses in the United States (2001–2023) Authors, Clark et al., Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Duke University
Extreme heat is increasingly recognized as a major threat to workers' health and economic productivity. The authors quantify how rising temperatures have eroded US economic productivity over the past two decades, especially in heat-exposed industries. Using high-resolution hourly weather data and multiple labor productivity models, the authors estimate that heat-related productivity losses grew from a model average of $130 billion in 2001 to $220 billion in 2023. These losses have been concentrated in sectors with relatively high exposure to heat, with the construction and manufacturing sectors facing the highest average annual losses—though all sectors have been affected. Geographically, heat has disproportionately affected rural Southern counties, where average annual heat-related losses often exceed 3% of total county gross domestic product. The study sheds new light on heat-economy interactions, showing how both modeling assumptions and local conditions significantly affect estimated impacts, providing critical insights for developing targeted adaptation strategies.
156 articles in 57 journals by 1028 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Alpine Summer Surface Temperature Amplification Is Spatially Heterogeneous and Intensified by Wind and Sun, MacDonald et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.72542
Conditions for instability in the climate–carbon cycle system, Clarke et al., Earth System Dynamics Open Access 10.5194/esd-16-2087-2025
Eurasian winter temperature variability amplified by synoptic-scale arctic warming and the corresponding sea ice responses, Zhang et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.105188
Consensus machines
Posted on 26 November 2025 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink
I still spend a decent amount of time engaging with folks who disagree with me on X (nee Twitter). One thing there has recently caught my eye is the integration of Grok, xAI’s large language model (LLM), into twitter engagements. Users can ask Grok questions and get answers, and in many cases (particularly for scientific questions) these answers are not necessarily what they are looking for:
Grok is somewhat of an outlier in the LLM space as its developers have tried to manipulate its outputs to fit their ideological priors (with some unfortunate results). But even Grok is surprisingly consistent at giving scientifically accurate answers to questions about topics like climate change, vaccines, evolution, GMOs, and others where the US public tends to be divided along ideological lines.
