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This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Zeke Hausfather, Glen Peters, and Piers Forster With the release of the new van Vuuren et al 2026 paper on the emissions scenarios that will be used in the upcoming IPCC 7th Assessment Report, the internet has been abuzz with debate over the implications of the formal retirement of the RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 scenario. The president of the United States even weighed in over the weekend in his own unique style, posting that “the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!”. van Vuuren et al justify this move by noting

This is a re-post from And Then There's Physics If you’ve been paying attention to the climate debate on social media you might have noticed the RCP8.5 debate rearing it’s ugly head again. This is because a new set of emission/concentration projections have been developed for the climate modelling community (CMIP7). These new projections no longer include an RCP8.5-like projection and so all of those

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 17, 2026 thru Sat, May 23, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Policy and Politics (6 articles) What the US Would Lose If It Eliminates the National Center for Atmospheric Research 'I think there's a great loss for the wrong reasons. There's no good reason for dismantling this or tearing it down,'' a former NASA chief scientist says. Inside Climate News, Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth, May 16, 2026.

Open access notables Attribution of UK Temperature Changes to Anthropogenic and Natural Factors, Amos et al., Atmospheric Science Letters Understanding the extent to which human activities have influenced regional climate is a key scientific and policy challenge. The UK is one of the world's best observed regions climatically, with a long and reliable temperature record that makes it an important test case for regional detection and attribution. Here, for the first time, we apply optimal fingerprinting to UK mean 2-m air temperature changes using the Estimating Equations method, HadUK-Grid observations, and CMIP6 simulations. We assess the extent to which obser

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson The odds are in El Niño’s favor right now. This natural weather phenomenon, part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, occurs when warmer-than-average water extends throughout most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean just below the surface. That’s happening now. And powerful bursts of westerly wind have pushed immense amounts of warm water eastward, toward the Niño3.4 region where sea surface temperature, along with other atmospheric conditions, is used to assess the state of ENSO. On May 14, in its monthly ENSO outlook, the NOAA/National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center gave an 82% chance that El N

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 electromagnetic radiation from wind turbines pose a threat to human health? Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from wind turbines are well below international exposure safety limits. Wind turbines produce EMFs mainly from their electrical equipment. Multiple studies have found their strength to be lower than everyday exposure to many common household appliances

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Rafael Méndez Tejeda El Niño is (probably) coming back later this year. And this time, it’s unfolding against a backdrop of unusually warm oceans and an even warmer climate system than the last time we experienced this natural climate pattern. Here is what you need to know about it. What is El Niño? The term El Niño is part of a broader phenomenon called El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s a recurring climate pattern involving changes in sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific.

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 10, 2026 thru Sat, May 16, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (10 articles) This critical climate system is tipping…. Or is it? DrGilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, May 9, 2026. This summer, the American water crisis becomes real Concerns over water access are poised to consume summer in the U.S., as crises in Corpus Christi and across the Colorado River threaten to boil over. Grist, Molly Taft, May

Open access notables The Perils of Climate Catastrophism: A Call to Situate Crisis and Change, Bickerstaff, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Catastrophic imaginaries are inextricably bound to how we think about climate change and also how we respond—individually and collectively—to the urgent challenges of achieving rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This advanced review reflects on, and problematises, the power and persistence of ideas about climate catastrophe. It is argued that this politically and culturally dominant framing of imminent planetary devastation impedes and constrains action on climate change. It is a position that underl

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink Back in December I provided some initial projections of where both 2026 and 2027 global mean surface temperatures might end up. A lot has happened since then. We’ve gotten the first three months of data in for 20261 (and have a good sense of where April 2026 will end up in reanaly