The Bugs Are Coming

I saw two articles in the last few days about bugs appearing where they have never been before, due to, at least in part, climate change:

• a women who says she hasn't recently been off Long Island in the US somehow acquired the viral disease chikungunya (NY Times, free article), "the first such case of local transmission ever recorded in New York."
• it's been confirmed that a mosquito has been in Iceland, the first.

Of course these could be one-offs. But it's the kind of thing scientists have talked about for decades. We'll see....

PS: Yes I used the word "bug" to describe a virus. Colloquial usage.

Chinese vs US Wind

Paul Krugman: "In his rambling speech at the United Nations, Donald Trump insisted that China isn’t making use of wind power: 'They use coal, they use gas, they use almost anything, but they don’t like wind.' I don’t know where Trump gets his misinformation — maybe the same sources telling him that Portland is in flames. But here’s the reality:" (link)

Krugman also gives this chart, regarding the US:

Grok says the average US home uses 1,232 watts of electricity, so the above projection change of about 40 GW is enough electricity for over 32 million homes! That's about 24% (!!) of Grok's estimated 134.3 M occupied households in the US in 2030. 

One-quarter of US homes.

I didn't realize Trump was fowling things up THIS badly....

Shelley's "The Cloud"

From the dedication page of Atmospheric Science: An Introductory Survey, 2nd edition (2006) by Wallace and Hobbs, dedicated to co-author Peter V. Hobbs.

2025 Will Likely be Third-Warmest Year

The last three years of monthly temperatures, via Copernicus. 

This year should easily be the third-warmest year in their record (which goes back to 1940; not sure how they got their 1850-1900 baseline). But probably no higher, even though this September saw a significant increase from August. 

The 2025 year-to-date average is 1.46°C relative to 1850-1900, so just below 1.5°C. September was 1.47°C. If the last three months of the year average 1.613̅ °C higher, the yearly average will be above 1.5°C. (That quasi-bar above the 3 means it's a repeating number ad infinitum; the exact number is 121/75.)

For comparison, 2023 averaged 1.48°C and 2024 averaged 1.60°C. Another year above 1.5°C would definitely be newsworthy, especially as 2025 has basically been ENSO-neutral. And then it would be the second-warmest year.  

PS: GISS and NOAA won't be updating their monthly numbers due to the US government shutdown. Not sure if they will even be allowed after Trump's anti-climate change orders. Same for PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume. NSIDC sea ice extent & area numbers did arrive for September shortly after October started.

the UK (for now)

Antarctica Sea Ice Width is Decreasing

Of course it is. I recently heard that it had drawn 100 km closer to shore. Maybe it was 80 km. I thought I'd try to estimate that.

I'll assume Antarctica is a perfect circle, as well as the sea ice. So the sea ice is an annulus with width w, the distance between its outer and inner radii. Then it's real easy to calculate w of the sea ice from its area (not extent), 13.72 Mkm², and the average radius (R) of Antarctica, =sqrt(A_ant/pi):

where "si" is sea ice. Using average annual area, this gives the following graph:

I spent a lot of time trying to make a pretty graph on datawrapper.de, but it was too complicated to get exactly what I want. So this will have to do.

In 2023 it looked like the average width had shrunk by about 75 km, but by 2024, while perhaps an anomaly, reduced that to 50-60 km. Still good enough for approximate work.

HadCET At a Record

Just a short note: the year-to-date HadCET average monthly temperature (Hadley Central England Temperature (data)), is at a record high through September, tied with 2022. 

There's also a tie for second third place, between 2023 and 2024.  

In other words, the four warmest HadCET year-to-date averages, through Septembers, have been the last four years.

The record is now 367 years long.

That's really quite remarkable.

PS: The 50-year linear trend of HadCET is 0.32°C/decade. Also, the 10-year moving average is at a record high.

Jonathan Pie Works Through the Debris

This Is Fascism

Fascism: Words to be avoided or limited in government documents according to the Trump administration: female, females women victim, victims pollution climate science injustice bias, racism, trauma race, gender status (huh?) disability, disabilities plus many more. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

— David Appell (@davidappell.bsky.social) September 26, 2025 at 4:27 PM

Obvious Vaccine Question

I was wondering, given our idiotic Secretary of Health and Human Services (RFK Jr) and clownish president, who think vaccines and acetaminophen cause autism...What is the percentage of unvaccinated children who develop autism? 

It's an obvious question but I've never see Sec HHS ask it. Or provide research on it. They can just look at the MMR vaccine if they want, as they mistakenly believe it causes autism.... By now the US has a large enough cohort of unvaccinated children (7.5% according to Grok) to make such a study possible. 

====================

Or I could ask Grok:

For example, a 2019 Danish study of over 650,000 children found no difference in autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.

I wish some reporter with press access to RFKJr and Trump would ask them this question. But from what I can tell they never ask hard questions. Seems they usually ask only about Gaza and Ukraine.

Ask Trump if he believes CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. Please....

====================

PS: Here's that Danish study.

China versus US Emissions

Inspired by this article in the NY Times (free link) titled "China Is the Adult in the Room on Climate Now," and this comment complaining that China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined, I did a little calculating. 

From ChatGPT and Grok I obtained this data:

So yes, China's per capita coal consumption is 3.5 t to the US's 1.0 t. 

But China's per capita CO2e emissions for 2024 were 11.2 t CO2e compared to the US's 15.7 t CO2e.

So it's hard to complain. Yes, China emits 3.0 times more CO2e than the US, but they have a much larger population. They're a much older country. When the US has been around 4,000 years it too could well have a population of 1.4 billion people.

Of course the US won't be around in 4,000 years. It might not be here next Wednesday. But if anyone can make it another 4,000 years it's probably China.

If, today, the US had China's population it would emit 22.1 Gt CO2e. That's 6.3 Gt CO2e more than China emits now. That's 118% of US emissions. 

118%. 

Naturally the planet doesn't care about our silly national boundaries, but the fact is the climate would be better off if the US emitted like China and not like it does now. 

If the US emitted like China its emissions would be 3.8 Gt CO2e, 29% lower than they are. Globally emissions would be roughly 4% lower. 

{I thought that last number would be bigger. CC really is a wicked problem.}  

Drug-induced Deaths in Europe

I'm really surprised about the Scandinavian countries:

 

US: "The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths increased from 8.2 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2002 to 32.6 in 2022." (CDC)

* I assume this doesn't include deaths from alcohol, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't have an original link for the figure.

Lunar Occultations of Saturn

Very cool. 

21 August 2024. BBC. 

NY Times, 2017:

August Temperatures, Brought to You by NASA GISS

August temperature anomalies from GISS are the highest in four months:

Global: 3rd-highest for the month of August, after 2024 and 2023

Northern Hemisphere: 3rd-highest after 2023 and 2024

Southern Hemisphere: 2nd-highest after 2024

Land-only: 2nd-highest after 2024.

The Southern Hemisphere could see a record high this year: the record was last year's 0.91°C, whereas through August its record is 0.90°C.

IRI says a La Nina is expected to develop this fall. What's going on with ENSO? It seems especially agitated lately.

Posting This Just On Accounta I Like It

 Iggy Pop and the Teddybears, Punkrocker:

Record Low for August Average Arctic Sea Ice Thickness

average thickness = sea_ice_volume_(PIOMAS)/sea_ice_area_(NSIDC).

A record low for August:

The linear regression trend is -3.0 cm/yr (for Augusts).

PS: Sorry, I couldn't get the chart to embed from Datawrapper, so had to cut-and-paste. So the links in the chart don't work.

Lately in America

Lately in America:

• There was a high school shooting in Colorado today -- three high students wounded (includes the shooter.)
• Prominent conservative podcaster and executive of a conservative activist organization was shot in the neck [WARNING: GRAPHIC] in Utah while speaking to a large group outdoors, and died. After a chase of a few hours the suspect is now in custody. 
• This activist, Charlie Kirk, once said that these kind of events are "unfortunately" worth it in order to keep the precious Second Amendment. 
• I think they really think a country where everyone is armed and carrying will be a much safer society.
• The US Secretary of the Interior recently said that an underwater “swarm drone attack” was part of the reason for the Trump administration’s decision to halt construction on the 704-megawatt (MW) Revolution Wind offshore wind farm, which had already reached 80 per cent completion. The Secretary told a CNN journalist there are “concerns about radar relative to undersea” and, in particular “undersea drones”.
• Apparently it was just discovered that Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" that funds everything, passed last month, "finds that President Trump’s flagship legislation will grant $40 billion in new subsidies to the oil and gas industry over the next decade."

That's enough for today. This country is really getting to be fracking exhausting.

--

Added 6:30 pm: Just to be clear, I am not trying to minimize Charlie Kirk's assassination. I am not implying he deserved it. Far from it. This was a horrible thing to happen--the guy has a family with children--and it's a terrible thing and you have to feel for the family. It's also a horrible thing because political violence seems to be rising in the US: Trump was almost assassinated last summer, two Democratic state representatives were killed just 6 weeks ago, and now this. And of course school shootings seemingly every other day. We are headed downhill and the slope is getting more negative.

The Lack of Peer Review for the DOE Climate Report

A clever depiction of the peer review process:

This if from The Climate Brink blog, where Andew Dessler addresses the lack of peer review for the DOE climate "assessment." Well-worth reading.

Of course, that assessment won't go anywhere. Like, nowhere. I truly feel sorry for its authors. 

Foreman Says These Jobs Are Going Boys, and They Ain't Coming Back*

* lyrics from Bruce

This is not a good sign: jobs available per unemployed Americans has decreased from 2 three years ago to a just under one now:

 

And that's with the arrest of about 60,000 immigrants this year. Those are supposed to be good jobs now opened up to Americans, like picking lettuce and slaughtering animals </s>. 

Or does it (also) mean jobs are disappearing due to AI?

Not looking good.

Updates on Sea Ice Extent at Both Poles

Here is the latest graph of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extents--specifically the 12-month moving averages, in millions of square kilometers. 

Projecting the 2025 final annual numbers based on the monthly anomalies year-to-date, 2025 is 4th-lowest since 1978, but only 0.18 Mkm2 higher than the lowest year of 2020. That's 1.8% higher. It's not inconceivable that Arctic SIE extent will set a record low soon for the 12-mth moving average. Except this August suddenly jumped to 5% higher than 12 months ago, when the monthly SIEs had been lower than last year's all months up to now. Maybe (?) it's the La Nina that seems to be trying to form?

Maybe useless numerics, but I find them fun.