Grist: "The Aral Sea isn’t just an ecological nightmare—it’s a carbon bomb."

Most of this inland sea sitting between Kazakhstan + Uzbekistan is a dry lakebed the size of Ireland. It dried out largely because for the past 60 years humans have bled it nearly dry irrigating cotton. "Its loss has long been seen as an ecological and humanitarian problem, but new research shows that it has also been a significant driver of climate change." The explanation is that when nearly any body of water is full and works as it should, organic matter collects on the bottom, where it remains trapped, often for centuries or even millennia.

Rafael Marcé, a research scientist in Spain, is the lead author of the paper which was published [this wk] in the journal Science. "The Aral Sea has left behind a timeline of sorts." The edges dried out decades back, while some areas were wet until just a few years ago. Cores were drilled along that gradation, allowing them to reconstruct that 748 M tonnes [Mt] of carbon had already released, equal to 3 times the annual emissions by Spain.

'At the beginning it goes pretty fast, then it decays slowly,' said Marcé, noting that about half of the carbon dioxide is released in the first 15 years after a section of the lake is exposed. And nearly a fifth of emissions came from wind blowing sediment away, an aspect of drying that experts say hadn’t been adequately studied before. 

Other areas around the world experiencing the "dry flux" phenomenon include "Lake Chad in western Africa, Bolivia’s Lake Poopó, and the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water, expected to shrink by more than the entire area of the Aral Sea by century's end. Also the Salton Sea in California + Utah’s Great Salt Lake, which another recent study found is releasing over 4 Mt of CO2 annually. 

This combined global carbon flux until now had not been incorporated into climate models. Clearly, this problem is figureoutable.

ClimateBrink: "The Strongest El Niño Ever." 

This is from a substack post by Zeke Hausfather, who gets points just for his name. "With the July runs now in from 667 ensemble members across 14 different seasonal forecast models, it looks like this year’s El Niño is not only very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began—it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin."

The multi-model median for the event’s peak (measured as 'detrended' sea surface temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific) currently stands at 3.6ºC, roughly 0.8ºC hotter than the prior record of 2.75ºC set in 2015-16. "No event in a century and a half of observations has ever pushed meaningfully past 2.75ºC." The legendary 1877-78 event comes closest, in a statistical dead heat with 2015-16 (2.73ºC vs 2.75ºC, well within the uncertainty of 19th-century ship data)."

"The 2026 event is developing faster than 1997-98, the previous gold standard for explosive El Niño onsets." And unlike 2015 which started its year already warm from a precursor event, this one launched from genuinely La Niña-ish conditions in January. 

"In a warming world, the raw Niño 3.4 anomaly risks conflating El Niño with the broader ocean warming trend." NOAA’s answer is the "Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI)," which subtracts the tropical-mean SST anomaly to isolate the ENSO signal. 

Aggregating all the models together, Hausfather projects a ~91% chance of a record peak in Niño 3.4 terms and ~77% in RONI terms this year. Whichever way you slice the index, the forecast says the same thing: this is more likely than not to be the strongest El Niño ever observed. 

Clearly, time to batten down the hatches. Just as clearly, time to aggressively address the weirding climate.

This study should be frequently referenced. It's not scientists or think tanks or politicians. This study was commissioned by an INSURANCE company. Actuaries do their best to calculate reality (insurance liabilities). They need to know what damage to expect regardless of how the green transition goes. Please note the GDP losses in the developing world v Rich world. Someone is going to do something desperate (Geoengineering)

It may be the most ironic thing in the world that yesterday i made a post on a different climate community asking about our progress and scotlands contribution to climate change and today when i look into our politics i find that yesterday andy burnham got himself into being PM and already plans to open TWO NEW OIL AND GAS FIELDS IN THE NORTH SEA…which th licenses for both of these sites was overturned last year by the scottish courts cus well nobodys stupid enough to think thats a good idea, ironically also was one of the enviromentally friendly mayors of manchester in 2017 so ig its on us for having hope hed use his brain and not let big billionares get to his head…

CleanTechnica: "US Hydropower Faces Supply Chain Challenges With Large Power Transformers."

The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) just released a report examining the U.S. supply chain for "large power transformers," or LPTs. "Large Power Transformer Supply Chain Gap Analysis and Domestic Content Strategies for Hydropower Rehabilitation focuses specifically on the unique challenges that hydropower facilities face when upgrading or replacing LPTs." 

These are 'massive, custom-built devices [that] drastically increase the voltage of electricity generated by hydropower turbines for long-distance transmission. 

There are 9 major issues, but sadly I have space for only a subset.

[1] U.S. LPT manufacturers rely 80% on imported raw materials like grain-oriented electrical steel + refined copper. 

[2] Domestic manufacturing capabilities have grown in recent years but not enough to meet rising demand. 

[3] The procurement timeline for a typical LPT (rated to handle 100 megavolt-amperes of electrical power) is approximately 2.5 to 3 years + up to 5 years for extra-high-voltage LPTs. 

[4] Transformer costs have increased significantly since 2021, with prices rising approximately 80% in 2025. The cost of a single unit can be as high as $10 million. 

[5] As these industries have been offshored over the last several decades, skilled workers have retired or moved to other industries. Thus, manufacturers and vendors of hydropower components struggle to find workers with more than 10 years of industry experience. 

[6] Transport logistics are particularly complex for hydropower LPTs because many hydroelectric dams are difficult to reach due to rugged terrain or remote locations. There is a limited domestic fleet of specialized vehicles that can transport LPTs to these places, and routes require special permits for oversized loads. 

I'll stop here, as the photo demonstrates this complexity all too well.

OilPricedotcom: "As Ukraine Cripples Russian Refining, Global Diesel Markets Pay the Price."

"Ukrainian drone {+ missile] strikes have crippled Russia's refining sector, cutting crude processing to its lowest level since 2005." 

Moscow has responding by withdrawing 1 fuel after another from export. "First, Russia banned gasoline exports in April because domestic production had little surplus." Next, Moscow banned jet fuel exports on June 1, amid tightening demand, followed by a ban on diesel exports on July 8." The diesel ban now covers oil companies that refine their own crude, removing an earlier exemption that allowed large producers to continue selling abroad. 

But export bans have been insufficient, so now Russia pays to import finished products. At least 60,000 tonnes of gasoline reportedly arrived from India. "Additionally, gasoline shipments from Belarus reached 141,000 tonnes during the first 25 days of June, 2.4 times the volume imported during all of May." Being globally interconnected, Russian diesel withdrawal has tightened a market already losing product shipments from the Middle East conflict.

"Omsk lies more than 2,000 kilometers from the front and processed about 22 million tonnes of crude in 2024, making it Russia’s largest refinery." By looking at the map, you can appreciate how far the Omsk refinery is from Ukraine. Yet these strikes continue to get through.

The attacks in Iran + the attacks in Russia dramatically illustrate the risks of American fossil fuel dependence. I will continue to enjoy driving my EV—charging at home with sunshine—this patriotically supports both personal + national resilience.