Alec Luhn

‘Refreezing the Arctic’ won a National Headliner Award 🙌 Big thanks to @pulitzercenter.org @jessicaaldred.bsky.social @mfischetti.bsky.social @sciam.bsky.social 🙏 www.headlinerawards.org/2026/04/27/2...

Two preprints find the AMOC has weakened 14-15% in just the past 30 years. The satellite imagery used is "some of the strongest evidence yet" Europe is heading toward the "ice age" winters of an AMOC collapse/slowdown www.newscientist.com/article/2595...

Lula winning is great for the planet, great for Brazil, and great for people who aren't revanchist assholes everywhere in the world, but let's not forget that it's also going to make some of the worst people on Earth extremely sad and mad. We should enjoy that, as a little treat.

Lula’s win is the first good news for the planet in a while! I bet it shaves a tenth of a degree off how hot our earth eventually gets, which will save millions of lives Thank you Brazil!

Great news for the Amazon www.reuters.com/live/brazil-...

Shallow-water coral reefs are at high risk of disappearing by 2075, the IUCN has warned at a UN biodiversity conference. The loss would decimate fisheries and speed up coastal erosion

Heatwaves are becoming “heat storms”: The largest heatwave of the 1960s reached 6% of the planet, whereas the largest this decade reached 85%, almost every person on Earth www.reuters.com/investigates...

Approval of Jackdaw gas field is a huge blow to climate action, but there's a better & worse version of this outcome. The UK should at least require Jackdaw to capture its CO2 emissions & sell its gas in the UK, says @samfankhauser.bsky.social:

As the UK government approves the Jackdaw gasfield, this UN report shows current policies take us to 2.8°C by 2100.

Flashback to just 15 months ago... Andy Burnham endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty www.carbonbrief.org/28-quotes-fr...

AMOC collapse latest - between 2060 and 2300 (!) youtu.be/cVrQcYu-llY with @pennysarchet.bsky.social, @alecluhn.com and @tinymaddie.bsky.social

RADDATZ: You would admit the Iran war caused a lot of these problems? CHRIS WRIGHT: Absolutely

People are already dying from El Nino, & yet humanitarian response plans still aren't even close to fully funded www.newscientist.com/article/2594...

AMOC collapse could happen in a few decades, or a few centuries. Can scientists build a system to give us early warning if or when that happens? Also in this post: the captivity of "greatest living explorer" & the urine melting Everest. Subscribe on Substack! icemushroom.substack.com/p/an-early-w...

If we hold solar and wind at 2005 levels and fill in the gaps with fossil fuels (with the mix determined by country – coal in China and India, mostly gas in the US and EU), global power sector emissions would have been 28% higher.

The collapse of the AMOC would be catastrophic. How will we know when it’s coming?

Artificial upwelling could be deployed to prevent El Nino. But it would require twice as much pipe as there is in all the world's pipelines. @tinymaddie.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2592...

El Nino brings droughts to southern Africa & flooding & disease to the Horn of Africa & Peru/Ecuador, killing thousands of people. But rich countries haven't met the UN call for aid to these areas. "Disasters happen because we don't invest in avoiding disasters.” www.newscientist.com/article/2591...

It would be funny if it wasn't so barbaric: "Pike, 50, was alive and loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection" www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

The collapse of the AMOC would be catastrophic. How will we know when it’s coming?

But I was told net zero will bankrupt us www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-evs...

The UK is trying to build an early warning system for AMOC collapse. The scientific question is whether that collapse is possible to predict. The political question, after 40 years of climate inaction, is, would we actually do anything about it? www.newscientist.com/article/2588...

Just saw this on LI Labor Assistant Minister for Climate Change & Energy, Josh Wilson, does know it's HIS super-majority govt that approved Woodside Energy's North West Shelf Extension carbon bomb to 2070, yes❓ & that NWS is an enabler of WoodCIDE's Scott Reef-threatening Browse gas project, yes❓

My geoengineering article won a @coveringclimatenow.org 🏆! Shoutout to @pulitzercenter.org, Taylor Roades & Mark Fischetti. Many folks have been let go from @sciam.bsky.social, incl some who worked on this article. So buy mags & donate to journo nonprofits! www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-...

Here's a controversial thought: Record ocean temperatures during El Nino provide a “natural lab” to test geoengineering techniques www.newscientist.com/article/2589...

Move over, pumpkin spice: September belongs to the BOG HARVEST. While many flock to apple orchards, the world’s peatlands are hitting their peak. Far from muddy swamps; bogs are the secret agricultural powerhouses you didn't know you needed. Join me in protecting these undervalued landscapes! 🧵 1/

Increasing emissions from permafrost, wetlands, lakes & wildfires will add an extra 20-30% of global warming that we haven’t been factoring in www.newscientist.com/article/2588...

‘Honest Bob’ Jenrick says he wants to “abolish” Natural England, and at the very least stop funding it, in the first 100 days of a putative Reform government. Reform may appear to be on the rocks currently but their plans are terrifying, mad & must be stopped. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Unlike other El Ninos, this record El Nino could bring not only a stormy, wet autumn to the UK, but also a stormy, wet winter. @tinymaddie.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2587...

I went on the New Scientist podcast to talk about the Nepal-Tibet glacier disaster & possible record ice loss in the Alps this year www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LK9...

This is due to Waymo's business choices, not technical challenges. Waymo could tell its cars not to park illegally (or block bike lanes), but that might annoy riders. Want Waymo to follow the law? Either use automatic cameras w/steep fines or make future permits contingent on better behavior.

Boris Johnson calls on conservatives to "get with the hot dang Right-wingers of Texas" & support wind & solar energy, only sold at local prices rather than the UK's national wholesale price www.dailymail.com/debate/artic...

A few days before the Nepal-Tibet glacier disaster, I went on the Rhône Glacier to report on possibly record ice loss in the Alps. As glaciers & permafrost thaw, the risk of fracture & collapse increases: icemushroom.substack.com/p/melting-gl...

From the record ocean temperatures to the falling rice harvest, El Niño is already having huge impacts. The next phase will be extreme weather like wildfires & flooding www.newscientist.com/article/2586...

Initial analyses of satellite images and seismic data by @watershedlab.bsky.social & @kristencook.bsky.social suggest that the collapse of a high glacier caused the flash flood disaster in Nepal www.newscientist.com/article/2586...

At the same time as the deadly Nepal glacier collapse, the Alps are facing possibly their worst glacier loss year ever. They will be mostly melted by 2100. A report from the Rhône Glacier, the source of the vital Rhône River www.newscientist.com/article/2586...

What could go wrong?

'Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said plans to provide Ukraine with blueprints for long-range Scalp missiles would add “fuel to the fire”... The Prime Minister told reporters: “Who started the fire?”' 🔥🔥🔥

If the UK approves the Rosebank & Jackdaw fields, they would cause climate damages at least 4x greater than the value they would generate. “Not just an environmental crime but also economically illiterate,” says one expert. @dpcarrington.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Here’s some fantastic thermal drone imagery of a thermal spring in East Greenland. Captured by Eva Nielsen earlier this month. The spring water is 53C, flowing down a rock wall behind the field team. Our HotBlink project is funded by the Independent Research Fund of Denmark.

Make a band bigger: The Cure-All

The case for Contracts for Difference: "When the rollercoaster of global pricing starts to climb again, Britain pays through the nose for its own oil and gas. We can end this by fixing the price of our own oil and gas." www.independent.co.uk/voices/dale-...

Make a band bigger: Elton Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Our emissions have really let the genie out of the bottle when it comes to Europe's weather www.newscientist.com/article/2585...

Welcome back, Mr MP www.theguardian.com/politics/202...