ocean warming

918

see seal level rise

MERRI OK

see coral reef

recall ocean is heat buffer and redistributes it (weather, rain) weirding

SEE GLOBAL WEIRDING CHAOS

glacier

// acidification?

bak 120

10 23 cyclone in yemen 2nd in hist?

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:{:{omfg }:

guk 6 26 Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world ‘flying blind’ | US news | The Guardian}:

Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world ‘flying blind’

Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will ‘severely degrade’ the accuracy of weather predictions

Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by

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About this content

Karen McVeigh

Fri 5 Jun 2026

The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather predictions and El Niño forecasts, with economic consequences for the US, European and American scientists have warned.

Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month.

As a result, the forecasts and early warning systems for storms, tropical cyclones and El Niño would degrade, “sometimes dangerously so”, according to Sabrina Speich, an expert in global ocean monitoring at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris and chair of the ocean expert panel of the Global Climate Observing System.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), run by the US National Science Foundation, is a vast network of seafloor systems, underwater gliders and moored surface platforms that feeds data to researchers, policymakers, educators and mariners worldwide. The initiative, which covers both US coastlines and extends into the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean, has been used to study marine heatwaves, harmful algal blooms, subduction zone earthquakes, ocean acidification and fisheries variability.

Dismantling it would remove a major component of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), a network of robotic floats, moored buoys and research vessels experts describe as the “eyes and ears” of the ocean. The warning systems based on the data, “save lives”, experts say.

Prescient research published in Nature Climate Change last month showed how data losses in GOOS, a UN-coordinated framework for ocean data for weather and climate collected by several countries, could degrade the ocean heat estimates that underpin weather prediction, El Niño forecasting and fisheries management. Losing US observations would be worse than randomly losing 80% of all ocean data worldwide, it found. US-funded platforms span every ocean basin, plugging critical gaps that no other nation currently fills.

Speich, a co-author of the research, said: “Ocean heat content is the most robust indicator of climate change we have – not just of what is happening in the ocean, but of the entire climate system”. Vertical temperature profiles that provide ocean heat content, are “amongst the simplest measurements we can make”, she said.

“Lose them, and you lose your ability to track not just ocean warming but the climate system as a whole – they are a proxy for variables that become unavailable the moment the observations stop.

“Forecasts would continue – but they would degrade, sometimes dangerously so. Atmospheric observations alone are not sufficient” said Speich. “Ocean data [is] fundamental to early warning systems for tropical storms, cyclones and El Niño. And the consequences would not stop at science: the economic costs would be felt within the United States itself, from agriculture to insurance to disaster response.”

The loss of US observations, in a year predicted to be an El Niño year, with “supercharged” weather extremes, could also “lose the ability to see it coming clearly to act in time”, she said.

“The stakes are concrete: farmers in the US and across South America use El Niño forecasts to decide what to plant and when – whether to expect drought or flooding shapes every agricultural decision months in advance.”

The most recent El Niño, which hit in 2023-2024, was one of the five strongest on record and contributed to 2024’s record-breaking increase in global temperature.

Removing US observations alone would produce a 163% increase in error for annual ocean heating rates, the research by Speich and her co-authors found.

On Thursday, the European Union said it would boost its own monitoring of the world’s oceans by investing in a €92m ($107m) initiative called OceanEye, more than half of which will go to GOOS. The announcement, by the European Commission, was long-planned, not a direct response to the US move.

John P Abraham, professor of engineering at the University of St Thomas, in Minnesota, and co-author of the research paper, described the US administration’s move to dismantle the $368m OOI system as “penny-wise, pound foolish”.

“The US government wants to save less than a billion in sensors, which are the eyes and ears of the ocean” said Abraham. “We have hundreds of billions in climate costs per year. The cost of the observation system is a fraction of the climate costs from hurricanes and storms that hit the US. ”

The US suffered more than 400 climate and weather disasters where damages exceeded or reached $1bn,between 1980 and 2024. In 2024 alone, the costs of such disasters amounted to $177bn. This “billion dollar climate and weather product”, managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer be updated due to “evolving priorities”, according to a note on its website.

The system, is, Abraham said is “quite an inexpensive way to reduce climate-related costs”.

“This is not about saving money, this is about killing climate science research,” Abraham said.

Samantha Burgess, the strategic climate lead at the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the European Union’s Earth observation system which integrates European space data with in-situ measurements to monitor changes and provide forecasts, said ocean observations are “irreplaceable” because “we can’t see the deep ocean from space.” They “save lives” by warning us of severe storms, she said.

Burgess said: “We need international cooperation to get the best available observations to mitigate risks in our changing world. Without ocean observations we are flying blind.”

A statement earlier this week by the National Science Foundation, which funds and oversees the OOI, said the program was not being cancelled entirely and described the plans as a “descope”, or reduction of elements, though it was not clear what data collection capacity would be left.

ref guk

The Trump administration plans to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system that has for more than a decade provided crucial data on ocean systems and climate change.

In a notice, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it had “initiated descoping of the Ocean Observatories Initiative” (OOI), a vast ocean observation network comprising more than 900 instruments that collect data on ocean health, including current patterns, climate variability and marine biodiversity.

The notice, issued on 21 May, came just days after Trump fired all members of the independent board that oversees the NSF.

A statement by NSF head of media affairs, Mike England, said the program was not being cancelled entirely and described the plans as a “descope”, or reduction of elements, though it was not clear what data collection capacity would be left.

The NSF’s notice described plans to remove “all in-water infrastructure” from observation sites off the coasts of North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, as well as from the Irminger Sea, a marginal sea between Greenland and Iceland.

Some scientists expressed dismay at the plan, while Democratic lawmakers said they would fight it, including Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who called it a “shortsighted move” that would “end up costing American taxpayers more not less”, the New York Times reported.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said on X: “Fossil fuel is heating our oceans by the zettajoule, so Trump’s corrupt fossil fuel stooges want to turn off the monitors.”

Following the announcement, the OOI’s principal investigator, Jim Edson, said the NSF’s plan involves a phased recovery and infrastructure removal process expected to take place over the next 15 months. “As infrastructure is recovered from each array, the associated real-time data streams and observing capabilities at those locations will come to an end,” Edson said.

The move will bring to an end more than a decade of continuous ocean monitoring after the system first became operational in June 2016.

Describing the network as having “delivered the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems”, Edson added: “We are profoundly grateful for the extraordinary efforts of the scientists, engineers, operators, educators, students and partners who made this facility possible and who continue to advance its legacy through the use of its data.”

The dismantling of the OOI marks another step in the Trump administration’s rollback of science and climate initiatives. It also follows Trump’s push to expand deep-sea mining and loosen fishing regulations, a policy that has alarmed ocean scientists and climate experts.

Hilary Palevsky, a professor focusing on marine biogeochemistry and oceanography at Boston College, pointed to the significance of the data that will be lost, particularly given the sophisticated engineering required to deploy and maintain the instruments.

“One of the real powers of this OOI and a lot of the collection of autonomous data is that scientists like me don’t have to have the expertise or the resources to be able to deploy this kind of infrastructure ourselves,” Palevsky said. “Being able to have instruments, both actually out in the atmosphere floating in the surface ocean, as well as surviving through the really deep mixing and waves in the subsurface.”

She said: “Over the more than 10 years that these things have been deployed, they’ve just gotten better and better at it. And so the data return has also gotten better and better over time … the scientific community was really just getting to the point of being able to capitalize on the data that had been collected so far … I’m really disappointed for the continuation of this important data set.”

Palevsky also warned that rebuilding such a network in the future would be difficult, saying: “If we want to put [the instruments] back out again, we need people who know how to do it and the team that knows how to do it is being dismantled along with the infrastructure program itself.

“We’re potentially at risk of having a gap in our ability to regain the expertise to do things that we had sort of just figured out how to pull off.”

For Palevsky and her students, OOI data has helped shed light on biological production in the ocean and its role in carbon sequestration – the process by which carbon dioxide is captured and stored – as well as deep-ocean processes, marine ecosystems and fisheries.

Data from the OOI has also contributed to research on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a critical system of Atlantic Ocean currents that studies suggest may be more vulnerable to collapse than previously thought, with potentially severe consequences for the global climate.

“One of the important processes in the AMOC is what we call convection, this really deep mixing of surface waters into the deep ocean that happens in winter, basically driven by the surface ocean getting really cold because the atmosphere gets super cold in winter and big, windy storms blow across the surface ocean,” Palevsky said.

“We have gained some really important insights into both how that happens in the Irminger Sea in particular, and how the drivers of that process vary from year to year from the observations that have been gained at this site,” she added.

For scientists like Palevsky, the consequences of dismantling the OOI extend far beyond ocean researchers, particularly as climate change intensifies extreme weather events around the world.

“As we reduce the amount of data that we have, the observations, as well as the science more generally to understand what’s happening in the climate system, it makes it much harder for us as a society to understand what we’re facing and what we need to do to plan for and adapt to it,” she said.

In a statement to the Guardian, the NSF head of media affairs, Mike England, said the program was not being cancelled entirely: “The NSF is not cancelling the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The decision to descope aligns with NSF’s wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.”

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How Trump’s EPA rollbacks could harm our air and water – and worsen global heating

This article is more than 4 months old

Experts say administration has launched ‘war on all fronts’ to undo environmental rules – here are the key areas at risk

Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman

Fri 30 Jan 2026

In his first year back in office, Donald Trump has fundamentally reshaped the Environmental Protection Agency, initiating nearly 70 actions to undo rules protecting ecosystems and the climate.

The agency’s wide-ranging assault on the environment will put people at risk, threatening air and water quality, increasing harmful chemical exposure, and worsening global warming, experts told the Guardian. The changes amount to “a war on all fronts that this administration has launched against our health and the safety of our communities and the quality of our environment,” said Matthew Tejada, the former director of the EPA’s environmental justice program.

“It is an attempt to completely eliminate the EPA and just leave a symbolic husk,” said Tejada, who is now senior vice-president of environmental health at the national green group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Since January last year, Trump’s EPA has launched a total of 66 actions to roll back or weaken environmental rules – a stunning rate of more than one a week – an analysis by the Guardian has found. Based on research by NRDC, that total comprises a wide variety of moves, from issuing rule exemptions for polluters, to shuttering the agency’s research and development office, to initiating efforts to repeal the legal finding underpinning virtually all US climate regulations.

The moves have come as federal officials repeatedly pledged to return the agency to its “core mission” of protecting the environment and human health. But in reality, the EPA has “abandoned” its mission, said Jeremy Symons, a former EPA policy adviser.

“The Environmental Protection Agency is now the Environmental Pollution Agency, helping polluters at the expense of human health,” he said.

The EPA has rejected criticism of its priorities. An EPA spokesperson said: “Unlike the climate zealots, the Trump EPA knows we can [remove] economy-crushing regulations that make Americans poorer while also fulfilling our statutory obligation to protect human health and the environment.”

Here are four key ways the EPA’s deregulatory efforts could affect people across America.

1. The air we breathe

A flare stack at a refinery in Linden, New Jersey. Photograph: Kena Betancur/Bloomberg via Getty Images A range of recent EPA actions may expose Americans to dirtier air, experts told the Guardian. In March, officials invited polluting facilities to seek toxic pollutant exemptions under the Clean Air Act by simply sending an email.

Overall, Trump’s EPA offered two-year exemptions to Clean Air Act pollution standards to over a third of all domestic coal plants, chemical manufacturers, coke ovens, commercial sterilizers and highly toxic facilities, the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists found last month.

An EPA spokesperson said the president had the authority to issue Clean Air Act exemptions “for national security reasons”.

The agency has also overturned strengthened limits on major pollution sources. And in September, it announced plans to shut down the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee and Mobile Sources Technical Review Subcommittee, both critical to developing clean air standards.

In an even more stunning move, this month, the agency stopped estimating the monetary value of lives saved when restricting fine particulate matter and ozone – two of the deadliest air pollutants – calculating only the costs to companies. The change went far beyond the usual “pendulum swing” of regulations in which Democratic administrations tighten rules and Republican administrations ease them, said Tejada.

“They’re ripping the pendulum out of the clock and telling people what time it is,” he said.

An EPA spokesperson said the agency was updating the consideration of human health in regulatory decision making “because air pollution has already dropped so dramatically that older tools can’t accurately measure today’s smaller risks”. They did not specify how the EPA will model these impacts in the future.

The agency is also reviewing clean air standards “to ensure they remain effective,” which is “responsible governance, not rollback,” the spokesperson added.

“The claim that EPA’s actions will worsen air quality is simply wrong. America’s air is the cleanest it’s been in decades, and that progress continues every year,” the spokesperson also said.

2. The water we drink

Photograph: MediaNews Group/Orange County Register/Getty Images Trump’s EPA will also imperil water quality, experts say. In March, it said it would narrow the definition of waterways protected under the Clean Water Act, which would ease restrictions on runoff from agriculture, mining and petrochemicals. In June, the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced plans to revise Biden-era wastewater standards for coal plants, meant to curb the discharge of toxic heavy metals like arsenic, mercury and lead.

Under Zeldin, the EPA has moved to rescind or reconsider federal limits on PFAS, a class of persistent “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, immune dysfunction, developmental harm, and more. In May, he proposed repealing four of six national drinking water standards for these contaminants, and in September said the EPA will no longer defend Biden-era protections against unsafe Pfas levels.

Millions of Americans rely on water systems which have seenPFAS levels that previous EPA administrations deemed unsafe, said Tejada.

An EPA spokesperson claimed the agency narrowed the Clean Water Act waterways definition to align with supreme court precedent, while defending the extension of compliance deadlines, saying those moves make sure “utilities can plan investments, keep the lights on, and still meet tough limits on toxic discharges”.

“Any suggestion that this EPA is backing off Pfas is patently false,” the spokesperson said, noting that the administration had kept some standards in place. “Our water policies are about cleaner water, stronger infrastructure, and smarter, more workable rules.”

Gaurab Basu, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, called such acts “unconscionable”.

“We as health professionals see the toll of their decisions, and we are enraged at the harm they are causing our patients,” he said.

3. The chemicals around us

WARNINg sign on the edge of a field in Wisconsin. Photograph: Wolfgang Hoffmann/Design Pics Editorial/Universal/Getty Images EPA has worked to loosen restrictions on toxic compounds, raising concerns about former chemical industry executives Trump tapped to lead the agency’s chemical safety efforts.

The agency plans to cancel $40m in grants for scientists studying toxic hazards to children in rural America, including pesticides and other potential food contaminants, the New York Times reported in April. It is also moving to revise rules for evaluating chemical risks under the Toxic Substances Control Act, narrowing evaluations to specific uses instead of all potential exposures. Critics warn this could weaken findings and limit regulatory action.

“They are systematically going after evidence-based sound science,” said Adam Finkel, a former member of the EPA Science Advisory Board and professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “It’s an agency gone rogue.”

An EPA spokesperson said the agency was working to change chemical evaluations to boost efficiency.

EPA has also moved to deregulate chemicals such as formaldehyde, a carcinogen used in industrial resins, particleboard and disinfectants. In December, it said it will reverse the longstanding EPA position that no level of formaldehyde exposure is safe.

Officials are also weakening restrictions on methylene chloride, used in adhesives, sealants and paint removers. In 2024, the Biden administration finalized a ban on most uses – a “much-needed, science-based change”, said Finkel, who led the development of Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards on the chemical, which preceded the stronger EPA regulations. But Trump’s EPA delayed the compliance deadline for commercial facilities.

These deregulatory moves come as the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, works to reduce routine vaccine recommendations and remove fluoride – which has been found to strengthen teeth – from drinking water, Finkel said.

“If it has benefits to normal people, like fluoride and vaccines, the Trump administration are against it, and they believe in extremely low doses of exposure being harmful,” he said. “But with harmful chemicals, they’re shouting that EPA has exaggerated risk.”

The EPA spokesperson said its chemical policies are based on “gold standard science and radical transparency”.

“That is how you Make America Healthy Again, not by clinging to broken systems that fail the very communities critics like Finkel claim to defend,” they said.

4. The climate we live within

Traffic backs up on northbound Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. Photograph: Kevin Carter/Getty Images EPA actions during Trump’s second term are poised to sharply increase greenhouse gas emissions, experts warn. In its most audacious move of 2025, the agency proposed repealing the 2009 endangerment finding, the legal foundation for all federal climate regulations. Expected to be finalized soon, the rollback would in effect erase all federal climate rules at once.

The EPA’s spokesperson defended the rollback, saying the finding “is the legal prerequisite used by the Obama and Biden administrations to justify trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations”.

“The endangerment finding is the foundation for us to do anything about [the climate crisis], and they are going after that foundation with a sledgehammer,” said Tejada.

On the same day, Zeldin said he would move to repeal limits on carbon dioxide from vehicles. Transit is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US.

[

‘Shameful’: Trump’s EPA accused of prioritizing big business over public health

Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/28/trump-epa-environmental-rollbacks)

Last month, EPA also began the process of drastically weakening fuel economy requirements for new vehicles. And in the power sector, the agency is moving to gut or repeal rules on coal- and gas-fired power plants, which account for nearly a quarter of domestic greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA spokesperson said the Energy Information Administration expects CO₂ emissions to decrease by 16m tons under the Trump administration, while the economy will grow. Much larger cuts are needed, experts say.

In July, EPA also announced plans to delay the enforcement regulations on methane, a pollutant that is over 80 times more planet-heating than carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also scrubbed climate-focused language from federal websites, including EPA’s, and shuttered offices responsible for climate research, including the Office of Research and Development and Office of Atmospheric Protection.

“The deregulatory action, the staff shrinkage, the reduction in research activities, all of these things add together,” said Olivia Guarna, a climate justice fellow at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “It amounts to rolling back the ability for EPA to carry out its duties.”

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The Trump administration has revoked the bedrock scientific determination that gives the government the ability to regulate climate-heating pollution. The move was described as a gift to “billionaire polluters” at the expense of Americans’ health.

The endangerment finding, which states that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare, has since 2009 allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources.

Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history”.

“This is a big one if you’re into environment,” he told reporters on Thursday. “This is about as big as it gets.”

The move comes as part of Trump’s bigger anti-environment push, which has seen him roll back pollution rules and boost oil and gas.

On social media, Barack Obama said the repeal will leave Americans “less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change – all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money”.

The former secretary of state John Kerry called the new rule “un-American”.

“Repealing the Endangerment Finding takes Orwellian governance to new heights and invites enormous damage to people and property around the world,” said Kerry, who also served as Joe Biden’s climate envoy. “Ignoring warning signs will not stop the storm. It puts more Americans directly in its path.”

The final rule removes the government’s ability to impose requirements to track, report and limit climate-heating pollution from cars and trucks. Transportation is the largest source of climate pollution in the US.

View image in fullscreen

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin speaks as Donald Trump looks on at the White House on Thursday. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

It does not apply to regulations on stationary sources of emissions such as power plants and fossil fuel infrastructure, which are regulated under a separate section of the Clean Air Act, but it will open the door to end those standards, too.

Trump’s EPA has separately proposed to find that emissions from power plants “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution” and therefore should not be regulated. Joseph Goffman, who served as EPA air chief under Joe Biden, expects the agency will apply their vehicles-focused arguments to stationary polluters in order to kill the endangerment finding for all sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Instead of the entire house of cards of all EPA climate regulation collapsing all at once today, it’s going to be like a row of dominoes falling,” said Goffman, who helped write and implement the Clean Air Act and worked directly on the endangerment finding.

Environmental advocates have condemned the move as illegal. A slew of green groups have promised to take the EPA to court over the rollback, as has the state of California.

“If this reckless decision survives legal challenges, it will lead to more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, more climate-driven floods and droughts, and greater threats to communities nationwide – all while the EPA dismisses the overwhelming science that has protected public health for decades,” Gavin Newsom, the California governor, said in a statement.

The move marks “the most aggressive, ruthless act of dismantling public health protections in the agency’s 55-year history”, said Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of environmental advocacy group Moms Clean Air Force.

In a press release, the EPA said the move will save the US $1.3tn, while Trump said Thursday that the move “will save American consumers trillions of dollars”.

The EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, said the Obama and Biden administrations used the endangerment finding “to steamroll into existence a leftwing wish list of costly climate policies”.

“Who paid the biggest price? Hardworking families, small businesses, millions of Americans who just want a reliable, affordable car to get to work or take their kids to school or go to church on Sunday,” he said.

But though the rollback could save some corporations money, experts note it could take a massive toll on ordinary Americans’ wellbeing and pocketbooks.

One analysis from green group Environmental Defense Fund found the full repeal of the endangerment finding combined with Trump’s proposal to roll back motor vehicle standards would result in as much as 18bn more tons of planet-warming pollution by 2055 – the same as the annual emissions of China, the world’s top polluter – and would impose up to $4.7tn in additional expenses tied to harmful climate and air pollution by that time.

Zeldin submitted the repeal of the legal determination for White House review last month. In July, he officially announced plans to repeal the finding, justifying the proposal with a widely criticized energy department report questioning climate science.

The agency received half a million comments on the proposal. Last month, a federal judge said the July energy department report was created unlawfully.

In the repeal of the endangerment finding, the EPA is claiming that the Clean Air Act is only meant to regulate pollution “that harms health or the environment through local and regional exposure”. But there is scientific consensus that by trapping heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gas emissions are intensifying dangerous extreme weather events, allowing diseases to spread faster, and worsening illnesses from allergies to lung disease.

Trump described the finding as “the legal foundation for the green new scam”, which he claimed “the Obama and Biden administration used to destroy countless jobs”.

But the new rule will have ruinous consequences for working-class Americans, said Jason Walsh, executive director of BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental groups.

“Billionaires like Donald Trump don’t suffer the devastation of climate change,” he said. “Working people do.”

The rollback comes one month after the Trump administration announced it will pull the US from the foundational UN agreement to address the climate crisis, as well as the world’s leading body of climate scientists. Over the past year, Zeldin has also launched an all-out assault on climate, air, water and chemical protections. The EPA has also removed crucial climate-focused science and data from its webpages.

“This is all part of the Trump administration’s authoritarian playbook to replace facts with propaganda, to enrich a few while harming the rest of us,” said Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the climate and energy program at the science advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Administrator Zeldin has fully abdicated EPA’s responsibility to protect our health and the environment.”

The EPA has said that it determined the US would save billions annually by revoking the endangerment determination. But the agency’s analysis did not account for the money and lives saved by the environmental and public-health protections that the change would eliminate, experts say.

Alex Witt, senior adviser at green advocacy group Climate Power, said: “Zeldin and Trump are telling our families: we’ll let you get sicker and watch your healthcare costs skyrocket as long as oil and gas CEOs can profit.”

“This decision makes it abundantly clear that Trump is willing to make our families sicker and less safe, all to benefit a few billionaire polluters,” said Witt.

Some industry groups have been reluctant to support the full rollback of the endangerment finding. The American Petroleum Institute, the top US oil lobby group, last month said it backed a repeal of the endangerment finding for vehicles, but not for stationary sources of pollution like power plants.

By ANNIKA HAMMERSCHLAG

June 2, 2026

SEATTLE (AP) — A portion of one of the most ambitious ocean monitoring networks ever built will go dark this month when scientists board a research vessel and motor off the Oregon coast to pull a research buoy from deep out of the Pacific.

The buoy 80 meters (260 feet) below the water’s surface will be removed June 16 from the Ocean Observatories Initiative — a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386 million that has continuously collected real-time data for more than a decade. But last month, the National Science Foundation announced it would dismantle most of the system, pulling instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027.

Funded by the foundation, the observatories have tracked everything from ocean circulation and marine ecosystems to climate change and extreme weather. Its data has been freely available and has informed more than 500 scientific publications. The project was slated to run for another 15 to 20 years.

In an emailed statement, the foundation said the decision is not a cancellation, but a “descoping” aligned with a “wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.” The foundation added that its decision drew in part on a 2025 National Academies report on the future of ocean science.

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To date, the OOI system has provided critical data used to understand how the ocean absorbs atmospheric greenhouse gases, how marine heat waves threaten commercial fisheries, and how sea levels trigger coastal flooding along the East Coast.

Fixed 2,800 metres below the surface, the Irminger Sea moorings have been crucial to tracking dangerous changes occurring in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC), a global current system that scientists fear could be destabilising.

Moorings stretching west off Newport, Ore, and Grays Harbor, Wash, captured data about temperature, acidity and oxygen data used by the commercial fishing industry to anticipate devastating environmental shifts.

The infrastructure cost $370 million to build, but required $48 million annually to maintain.

The network’s high-tech design featured heavily hardened instruments built to withstand extreme deep-sea pressure, corrosive seawater, and withstand destruction from marine life.

By using remotely controlled robotic vehicles and underwater gliders to beam data directly back to labs onshore, the network allowed scientists to safely collect large amounts of information without launching risky, difficult, and expensive deep-sea boat expeditions every year.

Dr Helen Palevsky, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Boston college, has used data from the OOI’s observation network to better understand how the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide.

She told the New York Times that: “One of the real tragedies here is that collecting data effectively at this site was a huge engineering challenge, and it’s not the kind of thing where you can just leave your notes for the next person who comes in, there’s a lot of expertise that has the potential to be lost.”

The dismantling is the latest escalation in a broader effort by the administration to scale back federal climate science. Just last month, the administration announced an additional $1.1 billion in budget cuts targeting research on marine wildlife, ocean currents, and fish populations.

Both international and American scientists have criticised the decision to decommission the network.

Craig McLean, who served as the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) during Trump’s first term said: “This reflects the further lack of understanding that the current administration has of scientific value and scientific merit,”

“By dismantling such a system, we push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership,” he added.

Professor Helen Findlay, a biological oceanographer at the Plymouth Marine Labortary criticised the decision and said: “Sustained ocean observations are how we detect emerging risks in real time, from shifts in circulation to changes in chemistry and ecosystem health. Without them, we are effectively choosing to navigate an increasingly volatile ocean with diminishing visibility.”

“Scaling back the very systems that help us track these shifts risks leaving society unprepared for their consequences. If anything, this moment should strengthen, not weaken, our commitment to sustained ocean observation and climate research,” she added.

*Click here for more from the Oceanographic Newsroom

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CONTEXT AN TC 5 26

Talk of a “super El Niño” developing in 2026 is gaining momentum, with concerns rising that this climate pattern could bring extreme rainfall, heat, drought and destructive flooding around the world.

The signals appear to be in place: The tropical Pacific is warming along the equator, and computer models point toward extreme conditions by the end of the year.

However, forecasting El Niño is not like predicting next week’s weather. Forecasts for El Niño typically aren’t reliable before late spring – not because scientists don’t understand the system, but because we understand its limits.

As an ocean-atmospheric scientist who studies El Niño, I spend a lot of time thinking about what scientists can forecast confidently – and what remains uncertain. Here’s what we know about the current event, what we still don’t, and why many regions should begin preparing now, even if a strong, or “super,” El Niño never fully materializes.

Why is El Niño hard to forecast in spring

The starting point for any El Niño forecast is the heat stored beneath the surface of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Computer models use data about those conditions to simulate how ocean temperatures will evolve over the coming months, and how they affect weather patterns around the world.

Right now, an exceptionally large reservoir of warm water sits beneath the surface there. In principle, this ocean heat should be a reliable signal of El Niño developing. In practice, what happens next depends heavily on what the atmosphere does.

The warm reservoir was shaped by a burst of wind activity in early 2026. Normally, the Pacific trade winds blow from east to west along the equator, pushing warm water toward Asia and leaving cooler water near South America. But in April, a pair of cyclones straddling the equator caused the wind direction to reverse. This short-lived reversal triggered a downwelling Kelvin wave – a pulse of energy beneath the ocean surface moving eastward along the equator.

That subsurface pulse has now reached the eastern Pacific, helping fuel intense warming off South America. At the ocean surface, this can resemble the early stages of a strong El Niño.

But there is a catch.

For El Niño to develop fully, the ocean and atmosphere need to lock into a feedback loop: Warmer surface waters weaken the trade winds, triggering more downwelling Kelvin waves that push warm water eastward and reinforce the warming. But that loop doesn’t engage automatically. It requires repeated bursts of eastward winds to sustain the process.

Until that feedback loop takes hold, the ocean-atmosphere system is in an unpredictable phase. It might tip into a super El Niño. It might not.

Spring is precisely when forecasts are most uncertain. Impressive early signals can fade if the winds don’t cooperate.

There’s a further complication: When models detect strong subsurface warming, they can simulate a stronger feedback loop than actually develops.

The result is that models can look too confident – even alarming – despite the system not being locked in. As of mid-May 2026, the wind patterns needed to amplify the warming have not clearly emerged.

We’ve seen this scenario play out before. In both 2014 and 2017, forecast models were pointing toward strong El Niño conditions by midyear. In both cases, the anticipated wind patterns never fully materialized and El Niño either stayed weak or returned to a neutral state. The early signals were real, but the expected follow-through didn’t happen.

So what do the forecasts suggest?

The current forecasts for 2026-27 still span a wide range in mid-May – from expecting weak to strong El Niño conditions.

How the winds behave in the coming weeks will determine what develops. If trade winds weaken again at the right moment, it could tip the system into self-sustaining warming – the kind that’s hard to stop.

As of mid-May, long-range weather forecasts weren’t showing strong eastward wind bursts on the horizon that could strengthen El Niño. In fact, quite the opposite was expected for the second half of May: a burst of winds blowing in the opposite direction. A full month without major eastward wind activity would be a meaningful brake on ocean warming.

The Pacific has loaded the dice for El Niño, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s May outlook reflects elevated odds of El Niño developing and potentially strengthening later in the year. By NOAA’s mid-June update, the picture should be substantially clearer.

El Niño intensity matters for weather worldwide

The difference between a weak El Niño and an extreme one is not subtle. It reshapes climate patterns across the globe – and with them, real-world risks.

If El Niño intensifies into a strong or “super” event, it can drive drought in the Amazon, fires in Indonesia, flooding in Peru and heavy rainfall in parts of California and southern South America. These effects could materialize by the Northern Hemisphere winter, when El Niño typically peaks.

In some regions, the stakes are immediate.

In India, the monsoon rains, which support agriculture and water supplies for hundreds of millions of people, have historically weakened during strong El Niño events. Even modest shifts in monsoon strength can bring food and water shortages, and harm economies.

At the same time, when El Niño is strong, hurricane activity in the Atlantic is typically suppressed – a rare upside – while the eastern Pacific often becomes more active with storms.

El Niño can even push global temperatures temporarily higher, as changes in cloud cover and the amount of heat the ocean releases alter the planet’s energy balance.

In contrast, a weak El Niño produces far more muted effects. This is why predicting intensity matters.

Using uncertain forecasts in real-world decisions

Because El Niño forecasts deal in probabilities, deciding how to prepare for the seasons ahead should be based on managing risk – not waiting for certainty.

El Niño’s impact does not occur everywhere at once. Some effects emerge quickly. Its impact on the Indian monsoon and Atlantic hurricane activity unfold over the summer and early fall.

Other impacts arrive later, toward the end of the year when El Niño peaks, bringing extreme rainfall to parts of South America between November and January. In Southeast Asia, scorching heatwaves often emerge even later, in April of the following year.

In regions like India, decisions about how to respond to El Niño risks cannot wait for more certainty. Communities need to prepare their water infrastructure now in case El Niño means the monsoon season brings too little rain.

Even where forecasts suggest reduced risks – such as a quieter Atlantic hurricane season – it would be a mistake to assume safety. Destructive hurricanes still hit in otherwise quiet years.

Pedro DiNezio, Associate Research Professor in Climate Modeling, *University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Ocean Damage Nearly Doubles the Cost of Climate Change

BY JOHNNY STURGEON

Ignoring the blue economy has left a multi-trillion-dollar blind spot in climate finance, according to a study from Scripps Oceanography.

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ICN 1 26

Ocean Warming Breaks Record for Ninth Straight Year

BY JOHNNY STURGEON

Scientists warn the ocean’s accumulation of energy is fueling extreme weather patterns and destabilizing marine ecosystems.

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AN 6 25

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere peaked above 430 parts per million in 2025—the highest it has been in millions of years—according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego on Thursday.

The news was overshadowed by the explosive feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and his erstwhile backer Elon Musk, but climate activist Bill McKibben argued that it was ultimately more consequential.

"In the long run, this is actually going to be the important news of the day—CO2 in the atmosphere passes another grim milestone," McKibben wrote on social media.

Carbon dioxide has been accumulating in the atmosphere due primarily to the human burning of fossil fuels, as well as by the clearing of forests and other natural carbon sinks. There, it acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the Earth, and is the primary gas responsible for the rise of global temperatures by approximately 1.1°C from the 1850 -1900 average. This warming has already had a host of dramatic impacts, from extreme weather events to sea-level rise to polar ice melt, and scientists warn these impacts will only accelerate under current energy policies, which put the world on track for around 3°C of warming by 2100.

The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations topped 430 ppm was most likely more than 30 million years ago, Ralph Keeling, who directs the Scripps CO2 Program, toldNBC News.

IFrame Content

"It's changing so fast," he said. "If humans had evolved in such a high-CO2 world, there would probably be places where we wouldn't be living now. We probably could have adapted to such a world, but we built our society and a civilization around yesterday's climate."

"While largely symbolic, passing 430 ppm should be a wake-up call."

Scripps and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration both measure carbon dioxide levels from NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, where Charles Keeling began taking measurements in 1958. As CO2 levels rise over time, they also follow a seasonal cycle—peaking in May before falling in the Northern Hemisphere summer and rising again in the fall.

This May, Scripps Oceanography calculated an average of 430.2 ppm for 2025, which is 3.5 ppm over the average for May 2024. NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, meanwhile, calculated a monthly average of 430.5 ppm, a 3.6 ppm jump from the year before and the second-steepest yearly climb since 1958.

"Another year, another record," Keeling said in a statement. "It's sad."

The news comes two months after Mauna Loa daily measurements surpassed 430 ppm for the first time in March, which Plymouth Marine Laboratory professor Helen Findlay called "extremely disappointing and worrying."

"While largely symbolic, passing 430 ppm should be a wake-up call, especially given the accelerated response we are seeing of glaciers and ice sheets to current warming," Dr. James Kirkham, chief scientist of the Ambition on Melting Ice coalition of governments, said at the time.

"This upward trajectory is a direct result of continued fossil fuel use, likely exacerbated by emissions from extreme wildfires last year, methane leaks from fossil fuel extraction and possibly greater permafrost emissions, alongside decreased ability of very warm oceans to absorb CO2," Kirkham said.

The monthly record also comes a little more than a week after a United Nations report warned that there was a small chance global temperatures could surpass 2°C in at least 1 of the next 5 years, only a decade after world leaders pledged in the Paris agreement to keep global temperatures "well-below" that level.

"Carbon emissions are still rising, and the atmosphere is going to keep heating further until greenhouse gas concentrations stabilize," Matt Kean, who chairs Australia's Climate Change Authority, wrote in response to the Scripps and NOAA figures. "What sort of climate do we want to leave our children and those who come after them?"

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CRM says no $ for hurric helene b/c illegal immigrants got nice hotel rms etc

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Climate denial fuels right-wing attacks on vice presidential debate moderators

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Evlondo Cooper

Research contributions from Ilana Berger

Published 10/04/24 mma

CBS' October 1 vice presidential debate put climate change front and center, breaking from recent debates that sidelined the issue. In the wake of Hurricane Helene's devastating path across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, moderators Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan pressed candidates on specific climate plans and reinforced the scientific consensus on climate change's role in intensifying hurricanes.

This approach promptly drew criticism from right-wing media figures and online influencers who argued that CBS had overemphasized climate at the expense of covering issues like the economy and immigration. These critics, many of whom have previously questioned climate science, disregarded both the context of Helene's destruction and increasing public concern over climate impacts. Their responses often employed familiar narratives of climate skepticism and attempted to challenge the scientific information presented by the moderators, illustrating right wing media's ongoing resistance to substantive climate discussions.

## Hurricane Helene's climate signals and public concern contradict right-wing media claims about climate change's relevance to the debate

* Hurricane Helene made landfall as the strongest storm ever to hit Florida's Big Bend region, with top sustained winds of 140 mph. This continues a trend of increasingly powerful storms, with Helene being the eighth Category 4 or 5 hurricane to hit the U.S. in the past eight years. The storm underwent rapid intensification fueled by “exceptionally warm” Gulf waters, 1-2°C above average.

:{:{Researchers estimate that this warming, largely attributed to climate change, increased Helene's destructive power by 40-50%. Helene set new storm surge records along Florida's west coast, breaking records set just last year. An attribution study found that similar cyclones are up to 20% wetter and 7% windier in the present climate compared to the past. Yale Climate Connections,:(style="background-color:#ff8000ff"):}: [9/27/24; Grist, 9/26/24; The Washington Post, 9/28/24; World Weather Attribution, 9/30/24]}:

According to CBS News polling, 70% of Americans — including over 60% of Republicans under 45 — favor taking steps to reduce climate change impacts. This aligns with a recent Pew Research Center survey showing 74% of Americans support U.S. participation in international climate efforts. The Pew survey also found that 71% of Americans expect to make at least minor sacrifices in their lives due to climate change. CBS News, [4/21/24; Pew Research Center, 10/25/23]|}:

- The 2024 debates occurred against a backdrop of escalating climate-related disasters, highlighting that the next president will be a climate president. The year 2023 was the hottest on record, with 2024 experiencing record-breaking heat as well. Hurricane Helene devastated the southeastern United States just before the vice presidential debate, starkly demonstrating the brutal reality of climate-fueled extreme weather. The mounting climate crisis ensures that whoever wins the election will face critical decisions on climate policy. Grist, [10/2/24; Media Matters, 6/25/24]

## Fox News, among other conservative outlets, attacked CBS' debate moderators for asking climate questions and highlighting the proven connection between hurricanes and climate change

- Fox host Lawrence Jones criticized the moderators for focusing too much on climate change instead of other voter priorities. “They spent way more time on climate change than the number one issue on voters' minds. I wanted to hear the response. Let's have a back and forth. Sometimes you got to go off script. I know they wanted to get all the questions in, but something so important on the top of voters' minds, maybe spend a little more time on that and not climate change.” Fox News, *Fox and Friends*, [10/2/24]

- Fox's Greg Gutfeld falsely accused the moderators of assuming there is a link between climate change and hurricanes without evidence. He also suggested that the moderators were uninformed about climate issues: "'Overwhelming consensus on climate change,' that's as much as Norah O'Donnell has ever read about the climate, and she doesn't believe there is any expectation that she has to read more about anything." Fox News, *The Five*, [10/2/24]

- Fox's Sean Hannity claimed the moderators were biased and prioritized climate change over more pressing issues. “Two very liberal, left-wing, arrogant, pompous moderators who were clearly trying to tip the scales in Tim Walz's favor. Almost every question tainted with Democratic talking points. There was a question about climate change before any mention of the economy or illegal immigration.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [10/2/24]

- Matthew Continetti dismissed the proven connection between climate change and hurricanes and criticized moderators for making it. “But climate change, that is not a primary or secondary issue in my mind in concern to this devastation brought by the hurricane. But that's what the moderators did on question two. And so, from that point on, I said, 'Well, it's three on one.'” Salem Radio Network, *The Hugh Hewitt Show*, [10/3/24]

## Right-wing media figures reacted poorly on social media to accurate climate questions in vice presidential debate

Right-wing host Benny Johnson criticized the debate format and fact-checking: “Moderators start debate with 3 straight questions about ‘climate change’ and a smarmy fact check. Republicans need to simply say ‘no’ to rigged debates.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]|}:

- Former Fox News producer Kyle Becker called climate change questions a waste: “Three questions in and we're already getting VP debate questions about the Climate Hoax. Public opinion polling shows that virtually zero Americans think this is a priority. Waste of a question.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Daily Wire host Matt Walsh dismissed climate change as a debate topic: “It’s ridiculous to waste time in a debate talking about ‘climate change.’” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Will Cain criticized the focus on climate change: “People are suffering…still missing in NC…wondering who is coming to help…wondering about their government…and the debate here is whether climate change is a hoax!?” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

* Sinclair host Sharyl Attkisson accused moderators of bias: “Once again, moderators taking the biased position regarding climate change as if there is no debate.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Right-wing radio producer and podcast host Duane Patterson decried supposed moderator bias: “Norah O'Donnell jumps in with the fact-check/editorializing comment to reinforce the left's view of climate change. it will be a 3-1 debate, apparently.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Meteorology student and social media figure Chris Martz disputed climate change's real impact on hurricanes: “FACT-CHECK = FALSE. They need an actual meteorologist on that debate stage. This is awful. @NorahODonnell: ‘Scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger and more deadly because of the historic rainfall.’ There is absolutely zero evidence that climate change makes hurricanes larger in size (i.e., diameter).” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Right-wing account Oilfield Rando falsely claimed climate change is a low priority for voters: “‘Climate change’ consistently ranks in the bottom of voter concerns and yet it’s a direct question in every single debate because Narrative.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly questioned the timing of the climate change question: “Did she really just turn Helene into a CLIMATE CHANGE Q & ask it on the SECOND q of the debate?” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Former Trump official and meteorologist Ryan Maue disputed CBS News' climate reporting: “Fact check: CBS News. No evidence in a trend either way of hurricanes become larger due to climate change. CBS News is not where you should go for accurate or authoritative information on climate change.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Conservative journalist and Truth in Media founder Ben Swann called the climate questions “ridiculous”: “JD Vance just delivered a MASTERCLASS on how to handle the corporate media in response to CBS’ ridiculous question on ‘climate change.’” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Media Research Center's Curtis Houck accused CBS of ignoring hurricane victims: “Insane question from CBS' Norah O'Donnell casting aside the suffering in North Carolina and the American south due to #HurricaneHelene to INSTEAD make it ALL ABOUT climate change in the #VPDebate:...” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

* Power the Future founder Daniel Turner denied the existence of the climate crisis: “JD Vance flips the script on CBS and their attempt at a climate change gotcha question. There is no climate crisis. #VPDebate.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Conservative website Townhall.com mocked CBS' climate change stance: “CBS News: OF COURSE climate change is real!” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Right-wing commentator John Cardillo called CBS' climate commentary “weird”: “CBS adding commentary on bogus ‘climate change’ was just weird.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Conservative podcast host Keith Malinak (“Just Keith” on X) criticized CBS' fact-checking: “Holy shit, CBS! You just ‘fact checked’ with a climate change disclaimer like we see under YouTube videos. Please do, suck it.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam suggested CBS misrepresented voter priorities: “Americans: ‘Climate change is our 18th priority.’ CBS: ‘LeTs mAkE iT tHe sEcOnD qUesTiOn!’” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

- Popular conservative troll account Catturd accused CBS of blaming hurricanes on climate change: “OMG - CBS is blaming the hurricanes on climate change - F.U.C.K CBS You evil demons.” Twitter/X, [10/1/24]

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johan rockstrom ted 2024

568,287 views

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl6VhCAeEfQ

Aug 15, 2024 #TED #TEDTalks}:

We're nearly halfway through the 2020s, dubbed the most decisive decade for action on climate change. Where exactly do things stand? Climate impact scholar Johan Rockström offers the most up-to-date scientific assessment of the state of the planet and explains what must be done to preserve Earth's resilience to human pressure.

...e Earth system scientists and climate scientists