Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Time for another What’s Hot roundup — six climate stories that recently caught my eye. Running the gamut from here comes Godzilla, to mountains that store water, on to tipping points bad and good, and finally, what we can do to keep the worst from happening. Let’s dig in…
A “Godzilla” El Niño Is Brewing
El Niño and La Niña are the two parts of the ENSO — the El Niño–Southern Oscillation — a periodic warming and cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that comes with shifting trade winds. During La Niña the ocean stores heat; during El Niño the Pacific warms up and heat gets released back into the atmosphere, spiking global temperatures and rerouting the Jet Stream and storm tracks around the world, for months at a time.
Yale Climate Connections reports that the 2026 El Niño taking shape may be the strongest ever measured, and not by a little either. Across 14 forecasts there is unprecedented strong agreement between climate models that has El Nino peaking near 3.6°C (6.5°F) above average — close to a full degree greater than the previous record — which will probably make 2027 the hottest year on record. The caveat, from analyst Zeke Hausfather: no El Niño this strong has ever been predicted before — so we are somewhat in uncharted waters.
The fingerprints are already showing: the Atlantic hurricane season is off to its slowest start since 2009, India’s monsoon is running about 20% below normal, and the U.S. saw the classic El Niño split this summer — record heat up north, mild and wet along the Gulf. Fall and winter should bring heavier rain and flooding across the Sun Belt, unusual dryness over the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, and drought building over Indonesia and Australia.
Global temperatures don’t flood your house, though — regional patterns do. Stay tuned for a post about what El Niño may mean for you, region by region, and what to do about it before the impacts peak later this year and next.
Turns Out the Mountains Have Been Saving Water For Us
GeographyRealm covered a University of Utah study that upended something I always assumed — that spring runoff is basically last winter’s snow, melting on schedule. Using tritium dating (measuring radioactive decay to figure out how “old” water is), researchers found that water at peak spring runoff averaged 5.7 years old, with groundwater making up 58% of the flow; winter baseflow water was a decade old on average.
So mountains act more like slow-release reservoirs, not just meltwater chutes — a little bit good news for anyone worried about drought resilience in the West.
Top Climate Scientist Says We’re Nearing Climate Tipping Points
NPR talked with Johan Rockström, of the Potsdam Institute, and it’s a sobering listen: he thinks we’re bumping up against the limits of the planet’s own ability to buffer climate change, as oceans and forests — which have been soaking up the bulk of our excess heat and CO2 — show signs of losing that capacity.
He points to heat waves, droughts, and floods threatening food security, and to climate stress sharpening conflicts in places like Sudan and Syria. Rockström’s main point is that a faster shift away from fossil fuels is needed — the problem isn’t that it’s too late, it’s that we’re not moving fast enough yet.
We Need to Invest in “Positive Tipping Points”
Green Central Banking reports on research from climate scientist Tim Lenton, whose point is refreshingly practical: if nature can tip into collapse, it can also be tipped back the other way — on purpose, with the right investment in the right place. He is speaking more about things like habitat loss, and destruction of large ecosystems, like fisheries, and not about climate change as a whole. But he also mentioned social tipping points.
A social tipping point happens when enough people decide that something is so important, that it affects the general consensus. This usually happens when about 25% of people in a group hold a certain opinion. I have given talks on climate change to various groups in the past, and I talk about climate tipping points, then I focus on the most important tipping point as one of my closing slides…
Okay, so how do we do that? –> Talk About It!
High Country News interviewed climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe and talked about one of her favorite points — about two-thirds of Americans worry about climate change, but fewer than half ever hear anyone talk about it, and that silence is a big part of why concern doesn’t turn into action.
Her “head, heart, hands” framework — understand it, feel it, then do something about it — starts with something anyone reading this can do: bring it up. Talk to your neighbor about insurance rates, your city council about drainage, your family about the heat waves. Dr. Hayhoe’s argument, and there’s research behind it as demonstrated above, is that millions of ordinary conversations can add up to hands making change.
So consider this your nudge: go talk about it. 🙂
Thanks for reading — if there’s a climate topic you want to dig into, drop it in the comments below or shoot me an email.