Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2026

Open access notables Methane Emissions From Wildfires: Trends and Anomalies , Zhu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Wildfires emit smoke particles and trace gases including greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, impacting the environment and leading to detrimental impacts on human health and economy. The estimation of spatially and temporally resolved methane emissions from biomass burning (BB) provides critical information in developing measurement-informed methane inventories. The use of satellite active fire products (fire radiative power) is an effective pathway to investigate wildfire emissions around the world. In this study, the Global BB Emissions Product-eXtended algorithm is employed to estimate long-term temporal variation and geographic distribution of methane emissions from BB using satellite observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. Globally, on average about 19 Megatonnes of BB methane are released to the atmosphere every year, nearly half of it originating from Africa, where BB represents a significant proportion of the total methane emissions. Our findings show that methane emissions from wildfires are substantial and can exceed other source sectors during extreme wildfire events, negating gains from years of emission reductions from anthropogenic sources. The contribution of fires to the methane budget is significant for regions with intense fire activities. Effective wildfire prevention and management could be beneficial to rapidly reduce methane emissions from BB. Diurnal asymmetry in heat stress intensification across Bangladesh, 1985–2024: Accelerated nighttime warming and emerging urban risk , Kamruzzaman et al., PLOS Climate Bangladesh’s rapidly growing cities are becoming hotter, but how heat stress is changing over the day–night cycle has remained unclear. Using 40 years (1985–2024) of hourly Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) data from ERA5-HEAT, we examined long-term changes in physiologically relevant heat stress across Bangladesh and its major cities. Results show a clear day–night imbalance in warming: nighttime heat stress (UTCI???) is rising faster than daytime extremes. National trends indicate increases of +0.03 °C per decade for UTCI???, +0.02 °C for daily mean UTCI, and +0.01 °C for UTCI???, with the strongest warming occurring in the early morning hours. These national spatially averaged trends reflect the mean across all 194 grid cells; individual grid cells show local trends of +0.1 to +0.4°C per decade, and the cumulative nighttime warming over the full 40-year period reaches approximately 1.0–1.7°C across most of the country. This signals a steady loss of nighttime cooling that people rely on for physical recovery. The most pronounced nighttime warming occurs in western and southern Bangladesh. Major cities—including Dhaka, Rajshahi, Khulna, Chattogram, and Sylhet—show additional intensification consistent with, but not directly attributed to, urban heat-island dynamics at the spatial scale of this analysis. The number of very strong heat stress days (UTCI > 38 °C) has increased by 4–15 days per decade, and cities such as Rajshahi and Dhaka now experience more than 150 such days annually. Together, these findings indicate a transition from occasional heat extremes to persistent, 24-hour heat stress, increasing risks to health, labor productivity, and urban resilience. By identifying when heat stress is rising fastest and where it is concentrated, this study provides evidence to support city-specific heat-action plans, early-warning systems, and climate-responsive urban design in rapidly warming regions. Significant soil warming across Alaska permafrost and non-permafrost regions from 1997 to 2023 , Oliver & Phillips, Frontiers in Climate Air temperatures in Alaska are increasing at twice the rate of the contiguous United States. Soil temperatures have been shown to be increasing across various landscapes but have overall received less attention. No comprehensive studies have been conducted in Alaska looking at soil temperature trends on a broad scale. In this paper we synthesized soil and air temperature data from 43 weather stations across Alaska spanning a 27-year period (1997-2023). Stations were divided into three regions based on permafrost extent (continuous, discontinuous, and no permafrost). Soil temperature trends were calculated at 5, 20, and 50 cm depth in all three permafrost regions, and additionally at 70, 95, and 120 cm depth for the continuous permafrost region only. Annual average soil temperatures increased significantly across all regions with the fastest warming rates occurring at the highest latitudes. Whole profile warming averaged 0.64, 0.37, and 0.35°C dec-1 in the continuous, discontinuous, and no permafrost regions, respectively. Warming was not slowed by increasing soil depth. Air temperatures warmed faster than soil (p < 0.05) in the continuous permafrost region (1.15°C dec-1) but were not significantly different from soil in the discontinuous and no permafrost regions (p > 0.1). Seasonally, soils in the continuous and discontinuous regions warmed fastest in the winter months, whereas in the no permafrost region soils warmed fastest in the summer months. Optimizing the Rainwater Harvesting and Roof Sprinkling System to Adapt to Urban Extreme Heat , Yu et al., Earth s Future Roof watering is a novel strategy for reducing air conditioning energy consumption and mitigating excess urban heat, yet its application is often constrained by water availability. To address this challenge, we propose an adaptation strategy that integrates rainwater harvesting tank with roof sprinkling to strengthen urban heat resilience. We develop a new module implemented in the Community Land Model Urban (CLMU) to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed strategy, whose parameters were further determined by a framework using multi-objective optimization combined with a transformer-based tabular foundation model. This integrated modeling framework enables the optimization of the proposed strategy and provides insights into its impacts on air conditioning energy consumption and its co-benefits on the urban thermal environment. Results show that the temperature threshold for triggering sprinkling is a more important parameter than rainwater tank size or sprinkling intensity. The optimal strategies effectively reduce cooling energy demand, lower extreme temperatures, and decrease heatwave days. However, a trade-off exists between rainwater tank size and the reduction in cooling energy consumption and heatwave days. Additionally, the energy saving is more pronounced under higher atmospheric temperatures. The implementation of the rainwater harvesting and roof sprinkling system in CLMU provides valuable insights for improving urban resilience and can be further coupled into Earth system model for large-scale studies. From this week's government/NGO section : State of the Climate in 2025 , Blunden et al., American Meteorological Society The authors provide a comprehensive, observation-based assessment of Earth’s climate system that not only documents what happened during a given year (e.g., 2025), but also how that year compares to previous years in the observational record. Thus, it is critical to have continuous, long-term observations of various components of the Earth system to document variability and change over time. Many of these observations, both current and historical, are also assimilated into various reanalysis products (e.g., ERA5 and MERRA-2), which are physically constrained representations of the Earth system and are used extensively throughout the State of the Climate report. Reanalyzes are particularly useful in regions where in situ and satellite observations are sparse. Built for backup, contracted to run: China’s coal support system risks crowding out clean power , Qin et al., The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor New coal power plants entering operation in China reached the highest first-half year level since 2016, with 10 GW entering operation for every 1 GW retired, despite a policy shift towards tighter control of new project approvals. China commissioned 30 GW of new coal power, up 43% from last year, while retiring only 2.7 GW. Another 25.4 GW started construction; Coal power generation rebounded 3.4% year-on-year in H1 2026, reversing the 2025 decline. The rapid expansion of coal power capacity led to worsening oversupply, reflected both in the increase of wasted wind and solar generation and in falling utilization of coal power plants; The rebound was not evidence of a broad return to coal following LNG shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. China’s combined domestic coal production and imports in fact fell by 1.4% year-on-year in H1 2026, rather than expanding in response to the external energy shock. Growth in clean energy supply and electrification helped offset the fall in oil supply and limit increases in fossil fuel consumption; Estimated wind and solar curtailment, including both reported and unreported curtailment, reached 360 TWh in H1 2026, up 49% year-on-year. Had this electricity been absorbed, the additional power supply could have met all demand growth and allowed coal power generation to fall. 132 articles in 58 journals by 1667 contributing authors Physical science of climate change, effects Regime shifts of AMOC-sea surface temperature relationship , Fan et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-76149-4 Trends in the Seasonal Cycle of the Equatorial Pacific Cold Tongue , Jiang et al., Journal of Climate Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-26-0049.1 Observations of climate change, effects Diurnal asymmetry in heat stress intensification across Bangladesh, 1985–2024: Accelerated nighttime warming and emerging urban risk , Kamruzzaman et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000848 Globally and intergenerationally unequal exposure to hourly heat extremes , Liao et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02724-8 Recent History of Surface Ocean Acidification Extremes That Compound Marine Heatwaves , Gregor & Gruber, AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2025av002112 Significant soil warming across Alaska permafrost and non-permafrost regions from 1997 to 2023 , Oliver & Phillips, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1887902 Spatiotemporal Patterns of Drought and Flood Abrupt Alternation and Their Driving Factors in China from 1951 to 2020 , Li et al., Journal of Hydrometeorology Open Access pdf 10.1175/jhm-d-25-0187.1 State of the Climate in 2025 , Zhao et al., Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters Open Access 10.1016/j.aosl.2026.100897 Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects The rise of AI in weather and climate information and its impact on global inequality , Mozaffari et al., npj Climate Action Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44168-026-00412-z Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects Intensification of the North Pacific Storm Track in the Mid-1980s: Internal Variability Versus External Forcing , Yang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl124032 Machine learning-based projection of China's ski resort suitability under CMIP6 scenarios , ZHAO et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.08.002 Projections of Earth's Hottest Surface Temperatures in CMIP6 , Wilson et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122540 Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection Advances in regional climate science in South America and Central America during the CORDEX Era , Bettolli et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001015 Global fully coupled climate-aerosol CMA-CPSv4 – Part 1: Aerosol simulation performance , Zheng et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-7279-2026 Impact of mesoscale eddy parameterization on Arctic Atlantic Water circulation and heat transport in the eddy-permitting grey zone , Pemberton et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-2375-2026 Statistical Downscaling of Daily Temperature and Precipitation From Regional Climate Models in Complex Mountain Terrain , Matiu et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70545 Underestimated Arctic “Radiator Fin” Effect in Climate Model Simulations , Huang & Huang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122725 Cryosphere & climate change A nine-year record of slush on the Greenland Ice Sheet , Glen et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-4345-2026 A State-Space Model for Monitoring Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Elevation Change from CryoSat-2 , Andersen et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-4327-2026 Arctic sea ice loss amplifies local evaporation influence on water vapor isotopes: insights from cruise observations , Zhang et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-11189-2026 Destabilization of seasonal snow cover under climate warming: Mechanisms and implications from four decades of satellite observations across mainland China , Wu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105644 Future climate change will intensify snow drought in the high-latitude water tower, Changbai Mountain , Xu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105646 Glacier mass balance response to extreme precipitation events in the Western Himalaya, India , Kumar et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105643 Glacier surges on James Ross Island, Antarctica, and their relationship with climate , Davison et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-4293-2026 Snow-eater heat waves of the western United States , Rhoades et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb3361 Synchronous Holocene thinning of Pine Island Glacier and its tributaries influenced by ice-shelf unpinning , Johnson et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-76244-6 Sea level & climate change Diverse response of extreme sea levels amplification and more vulnerable deltas/islands in the northern South China Sea by the end of the 21st century , Chen et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.021 Increasing Frequency of Coastal Erosion Indicated by a Hindcast Model of Storm-Driven Forcing Calibrated With Beach Stratigraphy , Schmelz et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007482 Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry Planetary energy budget during abrupt glacial climate events set by Atlantic Ocean heat valve , Buizert et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-02070-6 Biology & climate change, related geochemistry Abalone Mortality Associated With Hypoxia in Tidepools During a Summer Heatwave , Gagnon et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.74126 Arctic sea-ice variability is linked to long-term changes in bowhead whale foraging , Teixeira et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108344 Beyond temperature: The environmental constraints of high-mountain microrefugia , Vrábel et al., Journal of Ecology Open Access 10.1111/1365-2745.70422 Blue rings in Scots pine indicate cooling in the early and late growing season at the northern treeline , ?ermák et al., Dendrochronologia Open Access 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126592 Climate Warming Is Causing an Increasing Dominance of Smaller Moth Species , Ellis et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access 10.1111/geb.70294 Continental-Scale Biodiversity Predictions Are Influenced by Climatic Variability and Extreme Weather , Cohen et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71028 Coupling Climate Downscaling With Species Distribution Models to Identify Potential Climate Refugia for Giant Panda Forage Bamboos , Shang et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.74162 Denning Phenology Mediates Sea-Ice Loss Impacts on Early Reproductive Success in Polar Bears , Naciri et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71042 Evaluation and Forecasting of Habitat Suitability and Thermal Growth Responses in the Mud Clam Geloina coaxans under Climate Change , Liu et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108337 Future NDVI projections and ensemble strategy comparison in Inner Mongolia under CMIP6 scenarios , Li et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.3389/fevo.2026.1921058 Global threat exposure of islands in a changing world , Marino et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2534106123 Hydraulic traits govern opposing range shifts of montane trees under warming , Zhang et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02726-6 Metabolic Responses of Mammals to Temperature Anomalies Vary Across Climates , Rubalcaba & Correas-Araus, Global Ecology and Biogeography 10.1111/geb.70293 Oxygen Deprivation Implicated in Rapid Coral Mortality Under Acute Heating Events , Dhillon et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71030 Projecting the impact of climate change on the lipid profile of the hydrocoral Millepora alcicornis : Relative lipid homeostasis under warming and ocean acidification , Marrero et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108349 Resident and Migratory Falcons' Breeding Phenology and Productivity Respond Differently to Weather and Climate Change Across the Arctic , Gulotta et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.71022 The Impact of Climate Change and Human Habitation on Long-Term Ecological Stability , Staples et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access 10.1111/geb.70296 GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry Accelerating biomass loss from forest disturbances across Europe , Kowalski et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-02032-y Carbon dioxide fluxes of two differently managed sites in a former Scots pine plantation in response to widespread drought mortality , Sulzer et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111398 Decadal doubling of Siberian methane emissions due to warming-induced fires and methanogenesis , Zhu et al., Science Open Access 10.1126/science.aea5828 Global Change Impacts on Mineral-Associated Organic Matter: Consequences for Soil Carbon Persistence , Jia & Feng, Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71037 Global methane emissions from rice paddies are now increasingly quantifiable , Mehla et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03902-4 Mechanical thresholds constrain global peatland carbon accumulation , Mahdiyasa et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-66259-w Methane Emissions From Wildfires: Trends and Anomalies , Zhu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2026jd046687 Persistence of Arctic Ocean acidification under negative emissions , Köhn et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02715-9 Snow depth shifts greenhouse gas balance during freeze–thaw periods in grasslands , Luo et al., Journal of Ecology 10.1111/1365-2745.70421 The impact of artificial intelligence on carbon emission intensity: evidence for an early-stage inverted U-shaped relationship , Wang, Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1756431 Decarbonization A policy-navigation framework for exploring hydrogen integration pathways in Great Britain towards net zero , Abuella et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115535 Charging infrastructure network expansion for electric vehicles in Norway from a grid perspective: Barriers and solutions , Hjelkrem & Flataker, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115528 CO 2 mitigation potential of biomass-derived charcoal in Indian iron and steel industry: A case study from Karnataka , Tikadar et al., Energy Sustainable De