The research, led by the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and published in Geophysical Research Letters, analyzed satellite observations to find between 1.5% and 3% of the world’s storm cloud zones have been contracting each decade in the past 24 years, says Phys.org.
The trend has been linked to changing wind patterns, the expansion of the tropics and storm systems shifting toward the North and South poles
via climate science
June 28, 2025 at 04:30AM
From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Spring this year was by far the sunniest on record in the UK. Given that last year was one of the least sunniest, we need to accept that natural variability plays the major role in all of this,
But question marks remain about the longer term trends, which are clearly increasing.
Which brings us to the question of aerosols and air pollution.
There is absolutely no question that aerosols reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface or that they act as cloud condensation nuclei. This is what the Met Office say:
However, human activities are also responsible for increasing the atmospheric concentrations of microscopic particles, such as sulphate from industrial sulphur dioxide emissions; smoke from burning of agricultural waste, and pollution particles from traffic emissions.
These atmospheric particles scatter and absorb sunlight and terrestrial radiation and also act as cloud condensation nuclei and modify the microphysical and optical properties of clouds.
The net effect of the impacts on radiation and cloud properties is to induce a net cooling of the climate system which acts to oppose the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/earth-system-science/aerosols
And NASA established that reduced air pollution during the pandemic caused measurable warming in some areas:
The COVID-19 pandemic showed what can happen if the humans reduce their aerosol pollution. Fossil-fueled air travel, driving, electricity use, and industrial activity all decreased sharply in the spring of 2020. This led to cleaner, clearer air, which caused a slight warming — up to 0.2 to 0.5° F (0.1 to 0.3° C) — in some places.
So how much of that extra sunlight we have been experiencing in the UK since the 1970s is the result of cleaner air?
The Met Office produced the graph below, which shows just how remarkable the decline in pollution has been.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2024/how-is-uk-air-quality-landscape-changing
While cities like Birmingham were obviously badly affected by dirty air in the past, this pollution was inevitably spread more widely across the country by winds. And in the last few years we have had reduced sulphur emissions from shipping to add to the mix.
And the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate Report last year admitted that cleaner air was a factor in increased sunshine:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/about/state-of-climate
A 2006 study by the Met Office found a strong correlation between sunshine and temperatures in spring, summer and autumn:
Which all begs the question – what impact has cleaner air had on the rise in UK temperatures since the 1960s?
And why is the Met Office so reticent to mention it?
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via Watts Up With That?
June 28, 2025 at 04:03AM
By Paul Homewood
From the Daily Sceptic:
Temperatures are forecast to rise this weekend in parts of the UK and the Met Office will no doubt be out in force promoting its climate change scare stories. Existential threats may well be aired and Net Zero will be noted to be the only solution. Alas, as the sun shines down on the green and pleasant land (weather maps coloured dark purple for agitprop purposes) there are growing fears that the only existential threat on the horizon is to the Met Office itself.
The state meteorologist blows through about £300 million a year but it has faced devastating disclosures over the last 12 months that it runs a temperature measuring service full of junk data, invented readings and retrospectively adjusted numbers. It claims accuracy to one hundredth of a degree centigrade to weaponise its stats for the Net Zero fantasy, but operates a nationwide measuring network that is more suitable for limited agricultural purposes such as identifying when the seasons change. If it is just another political cheer leader for Net Zero but fails to run a robust recording network, then what’s the point of the Met Office?
Read the full story here.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
June 28, 2025 at 03:26AM
Yahoo News recently posted an article from the environmental website The Cool Down claiming that the native residents of the very small Panamanian island, Gardí Sugdub (also known as Cartí Sugdupu), are being forced to flee due to fast rising sea levels swamping the land as a result of climate change. This is false. Sea levels at Gardi Sugdub aren’t rising unusually fast, and the best evidence is that most of the island’s residents are voluntarily abandoning it with government help due to overcrowding and insufficient services and infrastructure on the small island.
Grace Howarth, the author of the article, “Residents forced to flee from ‘disappearing island’ due to heartbreaking crisis: ‘There were no more friends, no more kids playing,’” writes describing the situation there:
Rising sea levels are splitting communities apart in Gardí Sugdub and leaving people behind, possibly in danger.
. . .
One year ago, around 1,200 Indigenous Guna people were transported to the mainland by the Panama government for their safety as ocean waters encroached upon their community.
Climate Realism debunked an earlier article from the BBC making the same claims in February of this year; nothing has changed in the four months since then.
Concerning the claim that rising seas are causing the residents of Gardi Sugdub to flee the island, the facts are these, the sea level around Panama has been rising at an average of about 1 to 3 mm per year, a rate consistent with natural post-Little Ice Age trends, a rate that has not increased during the recent period of climate change. As such, there is no indication of an impending climate catastrophe as described in Climate at a Glance. At this pace, it would take centuries before Gardi Sugdub would face submersion.
Indeed, nearby islands in Panama’s San Blas Island chain, of which Gardi Sugdub is one, have increased in size in recent years, as described in the article, titled “San Blas Reborn: New Islands Emerge Amidst Climate Change Hysteria.” The author of that article notes, “[o]ff the coast of Maoqui in the Dutch Cays, a new island is gradually taking shape. What started as a mere speck of land, approximately 5 meters by 8 meters, has grown over the past decade to a remarkable 40 meters by 80 meters.” What’s happening in and around the San Blas islands, island expansion and growth, is also happening to island chains and nations across the globe, as discussed in several Climate Realism posts, here and here, for example.
If not rising seas, what has finally encouraged the vast majority of Gardi Sugdub’s residents to accept Panama’s offer to relocate. The truth is less glamorous or attention grabbing than the climate crisis narrative, but its it the truth none the less. Gardi Sugdub is severely overcrowded, with more than 1,000 people packed into a tiny space of just 0.028 square miles. That’s a population density higher than New York City! As my colleague Anthony Watts detailed in his February post on the Gardi Sugdub’s abandonment in response to a false BBC article on the topic, the real reason for the relocation of Gardi Sugdub’s residents has nothing to do with climate change. Instead, it comes down to basic infrastructure challenges:
With their story on the “plight” of the residents of Gardi Sugdub, The Cool Down, and Yahoo News by extension, the media outlets are just rehashing old debunked claims, in an effort to once again promote the false and flagging narrative that climate change causes everything bad. If most of the driftwood and tin shanty houses and shacks that currently cover Gardi Sugdub from shore to shore are cleared, perhaps the small island’s remaining residents can live out their lives in a modicum of comfort. The evidence suggests that at present rates of sea level rise, if nothing changes, Gardi Sugdub, as low lying as it is, won’t sink beneath the waves for a century or more. Whether that happens or not will have more to do with whether Panama wants to build infrastructure, including sea walls or better water treatment and delivery system, than any changes in climate.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News. In addition to directing The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, Burnett puts Environment & Climate News together, is the editor of Heartland’s Climate Change Weekly email, and the host of the Environment & Climate News Podcast.
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via Watts Up With That?
June 28, 2025 at 12:02AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 