Sep 5, 2026 · 4 min listen · Last updated September 5, 2026
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Daily Science Brief · September 5th
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As a global community, we currently find ourselves standing at the edge of two very different brinks. One represents the disastrous consequences of unmitigated climate change, and the other represents the hope of innovative solutions, renewable energy, and a sustainable future. In this Substack, we will explore these two precipices and discuss how we can navigate between them to secure a prosperous and resilient future for ourselves and generations to come.
Next year is shaping up to be a scorcher, and is very likely to be the warmest year since global temperature records began in the late 1800s. Here we provide the first formal projections of where 2024 might end up depending on how strong an El Nino event we have. We find that while there is a real chance that the world exceeds 1.5C above preindustrial levels in 2024 in the Berkeley Earth record, it is still more likely than not that 2024 temperatures come in below that level.
You may have seen arguments like this: This is 100% wrong, so let me explain how we expect temperature records to evolve over time and show you how they’re actually evolving. First, you can convince yourself that, in a stable climate, the odds of seeing a record should decline as 1/n, where n is the length of the data set. See notes for a derivation. We can test this by analyzing a climate model with a stable climate, i.e., one that doesn’t have any forced climate change in it, a so-called control run.
The most accurate record of US temperatures shows rapid warming
Climate skeptics have a new favorite graph. But it turns out that it shows exactly the opposite of what climate skeptics claim it does. “Zero US warming in 18 years, per US Climate Reference Network temp stations” trumpets Steve Milloy in a viral tweet. “U.S. Government Has an Accurate Measure of U.S. Temperature That Shows No Recent Warming But It’s Hidden” says the DailySkeptic website. They are both referring to this graph showing monthly temperature records between 2005 and 2023. This shows data from the new U.S. Climate Reference Network, a pristine long-term climate measurement system.
Letter I received in the mail the other day. Reprinted with permission. — AED It’s me, RCP8.5, your frenemy emissions scenario. For the looky-loos out there who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. I am an emissions scenario. If you want to predict the future climate, you need me because I am an estimate of how much greenhouse gases human society will emit. Plug me into a climate model and I can tell you what the future climate will be. But predicting the future is hard. Because of this, the community of experts does not make a single prediction of how the future will evolve.
Cherry picking is a tactic where someone selectively chooses a small portion of a data set that contradicts the conclusion drawn from the entire dataset. This aims to mislead the audience by presenting a distorted picture of reality, leading them to question established facts. In discussions surrounding climate change, the inherent complexity of the climate system and significant natural variability make it relatively simple to identify isolated parts of any big data set that seemingly refutes what scientists are telling you.
Your body is an intricate machine, and one of the things it does is continuously work to maintain an internal temperature of around 98F1. To do this, your body needs to dissipate roughly 100 watts (W) of heat to your surroundings, about equal to the energy output of a bright incandescent light bulb. The human body has two primary ways of dumping heat: through sensible heat loss and latent heat loss. Sensible Heat Loss: The term 'sensible' heat refers to the heat that is transferred “down gradient”, meaning from a hot object (you) the a cooler object (the environment).
Warming in the pipeline: Decoding our climate commitment
Our planet is warming, and this is the result of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that occurred over the last two centuries. The reason why emissions have a long-lasting effect is because carbon dioxide, once it's in the atmosphere, doesn't go away quickly. Instead, it hangs around for a really long time, continuing to warm the Earth throughout its stay. This leads to one of the most policy-relevant scientific questions: if emissions stopped today, how much future warming will occur because of past emissions.
Emissions are no longer following the worst case scenario
If you step back in time to 2014, global CO2 emission told a pretty frightening story. Emissions had rapidly increased at a rate of 3% per year in the 2000s, and there was not much sign yet of a slowdown in the early 2010s. Global emissions appeared to be following the worst case (RCP8.5) scenario. But over the last decade things have started to change. Global CO2 emissions (both fossil and land use) have been relatively flat during the 13 years after 2010, and are now closer to the middle-of-the-road RCP4.5 scenario than the high-end RCP8.5 one1.