Science Snippets: Winter Fires, Frost Lost, Droughts Deepen, Precipitation Enhanced by Cloud Feedback

Draft script:

Weather weirding is all the rage. Assigning names that attract attention is the expected response from corporate media outlets. So far, I’ve noticed no change in human behavior as a result. However, I doubt catchy names would be used if they failed to attract the attention of the masses.

Here’s the headline from SBS News in Australia: You know about global warming, but what about ‘global weirding’? Experts explain. The subhead continues with eye-catching text: “Fires in winter and devastating floods—the weather is getting ‘weirder’ and more extreme.”

I can’t imagine anybody paying attention is surprised by the concept of increasingly bizarre weather. After all, the designed-to-fail Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported Earth was amid abrupt, irreversible climate change with two reports published in October 2018 and September 2019, respectively. Global Warming of 1.5° was published on 8 October 2018. It concluded that the ongoing rate of human-driven change far exceeded rates of change driven by geophysical forces in the past. Anthropogenic climate change is the fastest event in planetary history. The IPCC concluded climate change is irreversible in its 24 September 2019 report, IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. If you are following corporate media outlets, you continue to be uninformed about the most important event in planetary history, which almost certainly includes the loss of all life on Earth.

Back to that article with the catchy headline in Australia’s SBS News, published on 9 February 2025. Here’s the lede: “David Karoly remembers regularly seeing frost when he was a young boy on his way to school in Melbourne – now it’s become an unusual sight for the city.” Karoly is Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne and an internationally recognized expert on climate change.

The Cooldown has been reporting decent stories about anthropogenic climate change. The trend continues with an article published 8 February 2025 and titled Scientists sound alarm after making disturbing discovery about Earth’s rainfall: ‘Urgent need’. The subhead paraphrases a line from the attendant peer-reviewed, open-access article: “By identifying the distinct mechanisms driving these changes, we contribute to a deeper understanding.”

Here’s the lede: “A new study reveals the different mechanisms that are driving ‘wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier’ extreme weather patterns in southeast Asia.”

Under a section titled “What’s happening?” comes this overview: “The impacts of land use changes and an overheating planet on extreme precipitation events on the Maritime Continent, the region of Southeast Asia, including the islands of Indonesia, the Philippines, and parts of Papua New Guinea, haven't received much attention. Now, new research has revealed the different mechanisms that are driving extremes of wet and dry weather.

A group of scientists from National Taiwan University found that deforestation due to land use intensifies surface warming. This heightens atmospheric instability and promotes local convection, ultimately resulting in more frequent heavy rainfall events. The scientists also concluded that our warming world expands the atmosphere's moisture capacity, leading to more intense and extreme precipitation events.

Researchers say their findings have revealed a ‘wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier’ pattern driven by different mechanisms. Dynamic processes largely control wet extremes under land use changes, while changes in evapotranspiration control dry extremes. However, in a warming world, dynamic processes amplify wet extremes, while a reduction in moisture and weakened atmospheric circulation influence dry extremes.”

This “wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier” pattern has been described for several decades by scholars of climate science. As Earth warms, more evaporation generally leads to more precipitation. However, more precipitation in some regions translates to less precipitation in other regions as Earth’s energy imbalance drives increasing variability. I have described these patterns in several previous videos.

The peer-reviewed, open-access paper referenced in the article in The Cooldown appeared in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science on 7 January 2025. Created by six scholars, it is titled Impact of land use changes and global warming on extreme precipitation patterns in the Maritime Continent. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science is part of the renowned Nature series of publications. The Maritime Continent refers to a region in Southeast Asia encompassing Indonesia, the Philippines, and parts of Papua New Guinea. Found at the intersection of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, this region includes many islands and shallow seas. It exerts considerable influence on global weather patterns, and is therefore intently studied by meteorologists, oceanographers, and climate scientists.

Speaking of the renowned Nature series of peer-reviewed publications, a peer-reviewed paper was published in Nature Communications on 2 January 2025. This open-access paper was created by three scholars and titled Multi-objective observations constraint of tropical Atlantic and Pacific low-cloud variability narrows uncertainty in cloud feedback. This paper adds to the growing evidence that cloud feedback likely amplifies warming, rather than reducing it.

A description of the peer-reviewed paper was published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States on 24 January 2025 and titled Scientists find cloud feedbacks amplify warming more than previously thought. The opening three paragraphs provide an excellent overview of the article in Nature Communications: “Clouds play an important role in how much the Earth warms when greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide increase. However, scientists have struggled to determine whether low-level clouds in the tropics slow down or speed up global warming, creating uncertainty in climate predictions. A new study … adds to the growing evidence that cloud feedback is very likely to amplify warming in the climate system, rather than reduce it.

The study found that the impact of clouds in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, two areas where low clouds are especially important, is much stronger than scientists previously thought — 71% higher. It also ruled out the possibility that tropical low clouds could have a cooling effect to offset warming. These findings narrow the uncertainty around one of the biggest unknowns in climate science and enable more accurate predictions of how much warming we might expect. This work was possible thanks to new techniques that balanced conflicting data from different regions, giving clearer answers.

The results show that Earth’s climate is likely more sensitive to rising carbon dioxide levels than many models have suggested. A stronger positive cloud feedback means faster and higher levels of warming. It also highlights the need to improve how climate models represent clouds, especially in tropical areas, to prepare better for the challenges of a changing climate. The investigators will extend the value of this study by developing and delivering a piece of software to NOAA that will diagnose issues with low cloud feedback in new versions of NOAA’s modeling systems. This will lead to improvements in NOAA models’ ability to capture appropriate levels of cloud feedback, and improvements in processes that lead to weather and climate prediction skill.”

I’m unsurprised that “Earth’s climate is likely more sensitive to rising carbon dioxide levels than many models have suggested.” Of course, “a stronger positive cloud feedback means faster and higher levels of warming.” Does this matter? Will the corporate media continue to catch up with old reports from the IPCC? If so, then will the masses be properly informed as habitat for human animals slips away? I have my doubts.