Skeptical Science

Open access notables Marine Heatwaves Overwhelm the Buffering Benefits of Marine Protected Areas: Two Decades of Collapse in a Mediterranean Gorgonian , Zentner et al., Global Change Biology Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are driving mass mortalities of coastal foundation species globally, threatening their persistence and the ecosystems they support. However, long-term demographic evidence of these imp…

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler and Zeke Hausfather Global temperatures are predicted to soar due to the El Niño event that is currently ramping up. Most forecasts predict that 2027 will set records, with the global average temperature reaching levels we would not expect until the late 2030s. This plot, from the Washington Post and one of us (ZH), shows how 2027’s tempe…

In April 2026 we published a guest blog post by John Lang in which he introduced his " Climate Trunk " graphics project and website. Since then, he has been adding one graphic per week and plans to keep going for about 2 years rounding out the big picture of human-caused climate change graphic by graphic. In this blog post we'll show-case the graphics related to climate science and will keep addi…

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler and Zeke Hausfather This is the second in our three-part series discussing the use of unadjusted data and how it overstates the warmth of the 1930s over the U.S. See part one and part three for more. Here on The Climate Brink, we’ve written many many posts about whether temperatures were more extreme in the 1930s than today. Just last wee…

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, August 9, 2026 thru Sat, August 15, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (10 articles) Climate Change Is Rewriting Europe`s Nuclear Cooling Assumptions Much of Europe’s existing nuclear fleet was designed around historical ranges of water tempera…

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 bioma…

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink AI energy use is a huge and controversial topic at the moment. Credible estimates have AI data centers accounting for around 12% US electricity use by 2030. But at the same time consumers have been given reassuringly small numbers about the impact of their own AI use, numbers that seem on their face somewhat inconsistent with the staggering size of their a…

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 . Are there enough minerals for solar power expansion to help mitigate climate change? Global mineral supplies are large enough to support solar development for climate change mitigation. A 2023 analysis of 75 emissions-red…

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters When a weak 45-mph tropical storm named Harvey moved through the Lesser Antilles Islands in August 2017 and then petered out in the central Caribbean Sea, no one could have suspected that the meager clump of clouds that remained would go on to become the second-costliest weather disaster in world history. But after crossing Mexico's …

A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, August 2, 2026 thru Sat, August 8, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (11 articles) El Niño and climate change are affecting rice crops in weird ways Researchers explain how El Niño and global warming are combining to create "the haves and the …

Open access notables ‘Towards electric vehicle misinformation communities: Shared narratives, networked validation, and reassurance among Australian consumers , McEwen et al., Energy Research & Social Science Electric vehicles (EVs) provide a pathway to sustainable transport systems. Yet public understanding of EVs is shaped by contested information environments in which misinformation circulates…

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk It’s hot. Fans and air conditioners are humming in homes, offices, commercial buildings, and factories. July is the most electricity-intensive time of year in the U.S., and the grid is working hard to keep up. In many places, high electricity demand equals high pollution. That used to be true in New Mexico, but the state’s electricity …

This is a re-post from By the Numbers by Hannah Ritchie Over the last week, this chart of wildfire burn in Europe has been doing the rounds on social media and traditional media outlets. Carbon Brief goes through some of this coverage here . The underlying narrative is that Europe is having its lowest wildfire year on record, which is quite at odds with the huge wildfires we see from France and S…

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink Jim Hansen and I have spent much of this year making seemingly opposite predictions about where 2026 will end up in the global temperature record books. He has argued since the spring that 2026 will be the warmest year on record; I have made the case that it is more likely than not to end up in second place. And in a recent post he framed our disagreement …

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 26, 2026 thru Sat, August 1, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (7 articles) State of the climate: Rapidly developing El Niño raises chance of record-warm 2026 Chances of a record setting 2026 El Niño rapidly increase, taking us closer to …

Open access notables Observed Multi-Decadal Acceleration of Globally Averaged Abyssal Ocean Warming , Johnson, Geophysical Research Letters Given sparse historical data in the deep and abyssal ocean, previously only multi-decadal temperature trends have been estimated from observations there on a global scale. Full-depth CTD sampling started circa 1970, with the first decadal global ship-based su…

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Neha Pathak Most of us sense it without being told why: A walk in the woods or an hour in the park leaves us calmer, clearer, and restored. Increasingly, modern science agrees. A growing body of evidence links time in nature to better physical and mental health – and a major new effort is working to document exactly what that evidence shows. That…

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 solar plants require backup from fossil fuels? Solar plants require backup, but it doesn’t have to be from fossil fuels. A combination of renewables, energy storage, and long-distance transmission can reliably power th…

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink A graph has been making the rounds on social media showing the average number of days per weather station above 95F, 100F, and 105F across the contiguous US since 1895. It comes from CFACT analyst Chris Martz, drawing on raw data from NOAA’s Global Historical Climatology Network daily dataset (GHCNd), and it shows the 1930s towering over everything since. …

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 19, 2026 thru Sat, July 25, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (11 articles) Insane': Republicans Push To Punish Canada For Wildfires “We will not tolerate this incompetence,” vowed Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, who may not understand how clima…