The science of science is to robustly challenge the science, and not to just blindly accept it. Climate and energy news from Germany - by Pierre L. Gosselin
According to a new study, coral proxy sea surface temperature (SST) evidence suggests the northern South China Sea (nSCS) naturally warmed and cooled at rates of 1 to 1.5°C per decade from about ~5300-5100 years ago.
A 2021 coral proxy study indicates from ~6000 to 2000 years ago nSCS annual SSTs were 3-4°C warmer than they were from 1994 to 2004, with the modern SSTs the coldest of the last ~6000 years.
Experts are warning that Germany is heading into the heating season with dangerously low natural gas reserve fill levels. Currently, Germany’s gas reserve fill level stands at only 55%!
Normal for this time of year is 90%.
Last February, Germany’s natural gas reserve fill level dipped to a worrisome 20%, but late February warmth saved the day. In September, 2025, Germany the fill level had been 73%, — a level considered too low for mid September — yet still far above this year’s measly 55%.
Under average winter temperatures, a 77% starting level is projected to be enough to keep heating running and leave around 38% in storage by spring. So currently, with only 55%, a prolonged, a severe cold spell would mean daily withdrawal demands could outpace delivery capacity, creating potential shortfalls of up to 25% on peak days in January.
The concern surrounding Germany’s current 55% gas reserve fill level stems from a combination of strict operational constraints, market incentives, and the risk of severe weather. Due to slow injection speeds over the summer, operators have consistently failed to meet that daily rate. If current filling trends continue through autumn, analysts estimate reserves will peak at onl
In response to the warnings, Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) insists that supplies remain secure. Total gas currently stored ~136 TWh still exceeds the total volume withdrawn across the entire previous winter (~134 TWh).
Failed government green energy policy
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD), has framed the low gas reserve fill levels as a direct failure of the government’s green energy policy.
Weidel argues that the depletion of reserves and current low storage levels leave German industry vulnerable and increase energy prices. She contends that cutting off long-term reliance on cheap Russian pipeline imports—and relying instead on expensive LNG or renewable structures—has systematically weakened the nation’s infrastructure and economic stability.
“The so-called energy transition is the biggest millstone crushing our economy and dragging it into the abyss,” Weidel said. “Expensive, dysfunctional parallel structures are being subsidized while proven and cost-effective infrastructure is being systematically destroyed.”
Antarctica as a whole has only contributed 0.35 cm to sea level rise since 2003.
According to a new study published in a Nature journal, from 2020 to 2024 the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) gained mass at a rate of +67.5 Gt/yr, reversing the modest 2003 to 2019 mass loss (-100.6 Gt/yr) trend.
This recent 5-year mass gain trend was driven by a massive increase in snow and ice accumulation (SMB).
Combining the mass loss (2003-2019) and mass gain (2020-2024) trends, Antarctica as a whole contributed a grand total of just 0.35 cm to sea levels over this 21-year period.
A Google search of NOAA’s Arctic Report Card record since 2020 indicates that over this same 5-year period (2020-2024) the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) mass loss rate slowed to -147 Gt/yr. This is a substantial deceleration when compared to the –267 Gt/yr mass loss trend from 2002-2019.
Together with the AIS 2020-2024 mass gain trend of +67.5 Gt/yr and GIS mass loss trend of -147 Gt/yr, we learn that GIS and AIS combined lost -79 Gt/yr over this 5-year period.
A total AIS and GIS mass loss rate of -79 Gt/yr translates to just +0.22 mm/yr of meltwater sea level rise equivalent from 2020-2024.
This would serve to undermine claims of a recent acceleration in the rates of sea level rise.
Deglaciation periods, such as the one occurring from about 14,000 to 6000 years ago, are estimated to have had ocean heat uptake rates of 12,000-20,000 ZJ (zettajoules). This range of excess energy absorption is 20-30 times greater than the rate of global ocean heat uptake that exists today (Gebbie, 2021).
During the Medieval Warm Period, or Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), the ocean heat uptake rates had dipped to about 1500 ZJ.
Today (2000 CE), the global ocean heat uptake has fallen to just 500 ZJ. In other words, even with the warming since 1750, we are still only about one-third of the way back to the ocean heat content values achieved 1000 years ago, when CO2 was 275 ppm.
“…the ~500 ZJ of heat uptake during the modern warming era is just one-third of what is required to reach MCA levels.”
Putting ocean heat uptake rates in a temperature context, the top-to-bottom ocean is today (1994-2013) warming at a rate of just 0.0011°C per year (Wunsch, 2018). This is an annual warming rate slightly more than one one-thousandths of a degree.
We are supposed to believe this rate is both alarming and unprecedented. It is neither.
German authorities suspect climate extremists behind wave of attacks on major power grid infrastructure
There’s been a series of coordinated sabotage incidents targeting the German power grid infrastructure over recent weeks and months. The media initially reacted by pointing the finger at Russian involvement, but the evidence is pointing to another source.
Leftists suspected of committing rash of major attacks on Germany’s power grid infrastructure. Symbol image generated by Grok AI.
“Climate extremism”
The hard evidence indicates no Russian involvement. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt characterizes the new attacks as acts of “climate extremism,” citing confessory letters sent by a 48-year-old suspect claiming responsibility to protest fossil fuel use.
On Tuesday morning, September 1, high-voltage lines connected to the Turnow-Preilack substation—servicing the Jänschwalde (Brandenburg) power station region—were targeted using homemade launch devices. Authorities reported that the launch mechanisms used fireworks-style devices to shoot conductive wires into overhead power lines.
Attack 2. Bergheim substation (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Also on Tuesday evening, an attack occurred at a substation in Bergheim, near Cologne. Conductive materials were launched onto high-voltage lines, triggering a short circuit that forced five power generation units to shut down. Investigators recovered several launch devices and pyrotechnics near the scene. A 48-year-old suspect has explicitly claimed responsibility for this site in confession letters sent to authorities and news outlets. German security agencies highlighted key structural parallels between this device setup and the Turnow-Preilack substation incident, leading state security forces to probe links between the two.
Attack 3. Dormagen substation (North Rhine-Westphalia)
In another incident occurring last Thursday evening, a passerby alerted police after spotting suspicious device components aimed at a substation in Dormagen, south of Düsseldorf. Responding officers discovered pipes fitted with cables, timers, and launch mechanisms targeted directly at the high-voltage equipment. The attempt was thwarted before the mechanisms detonated or caused an outage.
During a joint briefing, Interior Minister Dobrindt and North Rhine Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul confirmed that a manhunt was underway for the suspect following the discovery of suspected explosive materials at his residence and the seizure of his truck near the Hambacher Forst.
Major Berlin attack last January
On January, 2026, a major arson attack targeted the electricity infrastructure in southwest Berlin, resulting in one of the city’s longest and most severe power outages in decades. The fire destroyed five 110-kV high-voltage lines and ten 10-kV medium-voltage lines supplying several key substations across the region.
The sabotage cut off power and heating to roughly 45,000 to 50,000 households and over 2,000 businesses in the region.The loss of electrical heating created a major mid-winter public safety emergency.Hospitals and care homes were forced to switch to emergency generators and schools were closed for days while repair crews worked in frozen soil to rebuild the severed lines.Full power was not restored until January 7.
A confession letter posted on the far left-wing platform Indymedia claimed responsibility on behalf of theAntifa-friendly Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group).The letter framed the sabotage as a protest against fossil fuel consumption, corporate power use, and AI data centers. Berlin Mayor and Federal prosecutors designated the event as an act of political terrorism.
Police have little success
The ecoterrorist groups are difficult, to monitor, according to authorities. They operate via small, autonomous, clandestine cell structures without centralized leadership. They publish post-attack manifestos anonymously online, leaving little to no digital footprint prior to an incident. While German federal and state governments are treating the threat with urgency, critics say authorities are not taking the left-wing threat seriously enough.
In response to the January blackout in Berlin and prior high-profile grid sabotage, around 500 police officers raided 17 to 19 locations across Berlin, Hamburg, Brandenburg, and North Rhine-Westphalia. Sites searched included radical meeting spaces, such as the Kalabal!k anarchist library in Berlin, as well as residences linked to key suspects aged 28 to 36.
No arrests!
Police seized dozens of laptops, phones, encrypted storage drives, and timers. However, no arrests were made during or immediately after the operation because prosecutors lacked sufficient direct, physical proof linking specific individuals to the active crime scenes.
Double standard
Federal prosecutors claim they need concrete evidence that a suspect was physically at the site or directly participated in constructing the device—mere association with radical spaces or possession of extremist literature is insufficient under German law – a standard that is rarely applied, however, when it comes to rightwing radicals.
Worse, even vocal conservative voices see their homes raided by the police before dawn for just making critical comments (all protected by “freedom of speech”) on social media. Here, German police and prosecutors are especially quick to raid homes, detain individuals indefinitely, confiscate property, close bank accounts and seize mobile devices.
A new study reports Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) glacier melt has added a grand total of just 0.74 cm to sea levels from 1992-2020. The authors apparently consider this amount − +0.26 mm/yr of meltwater equivalent − highly alarming.
The study assesses 203 glaciers in the AIS Western Peninsula and documents a statistically significant rising surface mass balance (SMB) trend since 1980 and stable to slightly positive glacier elevation change (+0.02 m per year) from 1989 to 2020.
A 40-year positive SMB trend suggests the region is storing more water as snow and ice on land rather than releasing it into the ocean.
In an interview published by the German public broadcaster MDR (Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk) on September 1, 2026—titled “Es gibt einen Markt für Desinformation” (“There is a Market for Disinformation”)—prominent alarmist Stefan Rahmstorf spoke with MDR Wissen to address the tactics of climate change skepticism, which he says of course is funded by evil special business interests, and how communication to the public must evolve.
In the MDR interview and his broader public communication strategy, Stefan Rahmstorf addresses the rise of alternative, populist, and fringe media platforms.
Exclude skeptics from debate
He suggests that rather than trying to engage them in debate or change their minds directly, he calls on mainstream journalists and established media outlets to strictly avoid giving a platform to skeptic voices from alternative channels.
Investigate skeptics
According to Rahmstorf, alternative media channels often frame their content as independent, “free speech,” or grassroots skepticism, and calls on the established media institutions and investigative journalists to trace where these channels get their material, who funds them, and how political or economic interest groups amplify them.
“We scientists explain the data and facts of climate change, but journalists need to investigate who is serving the market for disinformation and where the money is coming from,” says Rahmstorf. “”It is the job of journalism to uncover who is behind these campaigns, who is funding them, and what interests are being pursued.”
Avoid debating skeptics
Rahmstorf says that it is ineffective to try to debate or convince dedicated alternative media creators or their hardcore audiences in comment sections. It’s a debate that alarmist climate scientists cannot win. The Potsdam Climate Institute researcher thinks communication efforts should focus on the broader public—those who are exposed to alternative media snippets via social media or messaging apps. Clear, accessible explanations using real-world data and verifiable facts help build immunity against misleading claims before they take root.
Rahmstorf tells MDR that science communicators and mainstream journalists need to anticipate the false arguments likely to emerge from alternative outlets and pre-bunk them.
Why are the climate ambulance chasers now way out in Nepal, grabbing at straws? The reason is because there’s little weather action anywhere else that would support the alarmist climate narrative – not even the Arctic.
Typically this time of the year you’ll find them chasing huirricanes in the Atlantic basin, or hollering doomsday warnings way up in the Arctic.
August 27 Arctic sea ice extent
Strangely, the alarmists have been mysteriously abesent from the North Pole region for many years now. Al Gore’s warning (citing experts) of an ice free Arctic by 2013 never materialized. Here’s the August 27 Arctic sea ice extent since 1990:
The data show that late-summer Arctic sea ice (August 27) has remained stable over the past two decades!
The post-2007 trend slope is only -0.01 million km²/year, a significant deceleration compared to the rapid loss rate of -0.105 million km² per year observed between 1990 and 2006. In a nutshell, Arctic sea ice late summer minimum has been stable for 20 years!
Record low burned area in Europe
And espite all the screaming from the media about Europe’s hot and dry summer, and raging forest fires, the data show very calm and encouraging conditions in terms of burned area for 2026 over Europe:
The reality is that burned area across Europe this summer has remained at a record low, and will likely remain on track to finish far below normal as rain sweeps over Europe again. These are inconvenient news for climate alarmists.
Low Atlantic cyclone activity this year
Also the hurricane season isn’t cooperating.
The next chart depicts the comparison of the 2026 Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) –which tells us how frequent and strong hurricanes have been– against historical averages and notable El Niño analog years through late August.
“…data on CO2 cannot be explained by the model of the greenhouse effect as the driver for temperature”
Today’s climate models assume there is a perpetual positive feedback as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere; CO2-induced warming produces more and more warming.
But Dr. Peter Stallinga uses empirical evidence-based data in his 2025 paper to determine the actual feedback sign is negative – and by a factor of two. This destroys the catastrophic runaway warming narrative.
“…feedback [from added CO2] is empirically found to be negative [by a factor of 2]”
The research emphasizes the statistical connection between CO2 and temperature is not consistent, shifting across different time periods or theoretical frameworks. For example, the paleoclimate relationship between CO2 and temperature may be 2000 ppm per K, whereas it is assumed to be 100 ppm per K over the last 60 years.
These wildly divergent relationships suggest that complex, varied physical processes influence the climate system rather than a single, dominant factor (i.e., rising CO2 emissions).
Ultimately, the study concludes that the greenhouse effect alone cannot adequately explain all observed atmospheric data.
“On a contemporary timescale, it is clear why the temperature has risen so little compared to the GHE model; CO2 simply does not have a large enough effect on temperature.”
Where are all the climate ambulance-chasers? Well, you won’t find them in the Atlantic.
So far in 2026, Atlantic hurricane activity has been unusually quiet. Currently, the Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index is only at 3.1, about 85% below the 1991–2020 climatological normal for this point in the season.
The unusual calmness has been due to a combination of atmospheric and ocean conditions, experts say.
Strong El Niño event
The warm sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific have driven strong vertical wind shear across the Caribbean and Atlantic Basin, disrupting the vertical structure of developing tropical disturbances, thus hindering the development of hurricanes.
Dry air and Saharan dust
Moreover, continuous plumes of dry, dusty air blowing off the African coast (the Saharan Air Layer) have “dried out” the atmosphere in the region. Tropical storms require moist air to fuel the hurricane development.
Suppressed African easterly waves
The atmospheric disturbances rolling off western Africa that act as the “seeds” for major Atlantic hurricanes have been weaker and less frequent than usual.
Lack of deep warm water
Sea surface temperatures on the very surface are hovering near average across parts of the Atlantic, but there is a lack of deep ocean heat content in areas like the Gulf of Mexico. The developing storms draw up the cooler water from beneath and so act to stall tropical storm growth.
While conditions remain hostile for major storm development, we are now at peak season and sudden shifts can occur.
Not surprisingly, there are lots of natural reasons explaining why dramatic storms aren’t materializing. But when ther storms do show up, the natural reasons disappear and it all gets blamed on human GHG.
“…we conclude that changes in plant decomposition and [soil respiration] due to global temperatures primarily control global CO2 cycles.” − Nishioka, 2026
CO2 changes have been observed to lag temperature changes (warming) via soil respiration since 1979 (r = 0.74). The consistent uni-directionality is T→CO2.
Anthropogenic CO2 accounts for 4% of the carbon cycle and CO2 just 4% of greenhouse gases (i.e., 96% water vapor derivation).
Thus, “an increase in anthropogenic CO2 since the [1700s] has contributed too little to affecting the global CO2 concentration.”
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. More information at our Data Privacy Policy
Recent Comments