chubbs

Yes impressive cold in Alaska and Yukon. Cool here in Philly also. Our coolest December since 2010.

PIOMASS volume growth has been slow this freezing season, ending 2025 at record low levels. The second low is 12/31/2016, which is hidden under the 2025 line.

Yes I know what performance is. All the things you mention and more will improve significantly with solid state batteries. The US market doesn't tell you much about EV performance because the best EVs come from China, not the US, and those vehicles are excluded from the US market. However this new announcement may allow other countries to catch-up or even leapfrog China. We will see.

The subsurface temperature distribution in the Pacific is similar to 2023, but the surface is different. Relative warmth is more west-based this year.

A Finnish start-up has introduced the first commercial solid-state battery: light-weight, durable, fast charging, and inexpensive. If product claims pan out, EV performance, which is already matching combustion vehicles, will improve dramatically. https://insideevs.com/news/783380/first-production-ready-all-solid-state-battery-official-specs/

Agree. A global temperature average with an 11-year running mean takes out almost all the variability due to: weather, enso, solar, and volcanoes.

Hunga Tonga volcano assessment report is out. Large effect on stratosphere but relatively small effect at surface: Professor Maycock said, "The Report shows that although water vapor is a greenhouse gas, Hunga had a net cooling effect overall and did not cause the record level of global warming observed in 2023 and 2024. This is a very important finding as understanding what caused the recent surge in global warming is a priority for the climate science community." https://phys.org/news/2025-12-international-reveals-atmospheric-impact-hunga.html https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1049154/files/Hunga_APARC_Report_full.pdf?version=1

Pacific upwelling much faster at the equator than scientists thought “It turns out that equatorial upwelling in the Pacific is about 10 times faster than we previously thought,” Karnauskas said. “And this could be really important because that water rising toward the surface in the Pacific covers a huge fraction of the ocean surface, and it affects things like temperature and nutrients needed for photosynthesis.” His work, published today in the Journal of Climate, reveals the faster rate of upwelling and determines why older estimates were off. Karnauskas combed through old observations and analyzed vast amounts of new data from state-of-the-art measurement tools to get a more accurate estimate. The findings point to a key discrepancy in global climate models, which currently predict significant warming along the equator in the Pacific. This new rate may help researchers understand why they have struggled to capture key climate trends in the region. https://cires.colorado.edu/news/pacific-upwelling-much-faster-equator-scientists-thought https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/38/16/JCLI-D-24-0704.1.xml

China has shown that it is possible to ramp solar very quickly. The main constraint is factories not resources in the ground like fossil fuels. With batteries dropping rapidly in cost, the addressable market for solar has expanded significantly. The ability to cost-effectively replace fossil fuels at scale has suddenly developed.

Below are a press release and a Q+A on the retracted paper. The problems with the original paper have been addressed and a new paper has been submitted. How do the results in the corrected version compare to the original: "The revisions did not significantly alter the central estimates, but did increase the uncertainty range they sat within. Correcting the underlying data for Uzbekistan and introducing additional controls to make the model more robust to outlier data and anomalies resulting from the transition between data sources changed the global median income loss from 19% (18.8%) to 17% (17.4%). Accounting for spatial correlation using ‘Conley standard errors’ did not affect the median, but did increase the uncertainty ranges, with the likely range of damages by mid-century increasing from 11-29% to 6-31%." https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/authors-retract-nature-study-on-economic-damages-from-climate-change-will-resubmit-for-peer-review https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/questions-and-answers-nature-study

Northern Hemi snow has also been running low for most of the cold season, record low at times. This can shift quickly. Currently Eurasia is very low, while N America is above average with recent snow advance.

Sea ice is close to normal on the Pacific side; but well below normal on the Atlantic side and Canada.

e Its not surprising that EV use is progressing unevenly. Transition costs for charging and other infrastructure is high. Subsidization varies. The key for EVs is battery technology which is proceeding rapidly: different lithium chemistries, sodium, and solid state. These new technologies have: lower cost, better safety, faster charging, longer battery life etc. EVs are getting better and cheaper. Now that EVs are becoming as cheap as combustion cars subsidies are becoming less important. The genie is out of the bottle. With the withdrawal of policy suppport, the US will lag; but, global penetration will continue to ramp quickly. EVs are very attractive to countries that import oil.

The chart I posted has global numbers. The US is lagging. We have large import duties on solar, and EVs from China making our costs higher than the rest of the world.

Don't agree. Renewables are manufacturing technologies, like TVs or cellphones, and get cheaper as cumulative production increases. Subsidization was necessary and worthwhile while renewable cost was higher. The cost of the subsidies is minor vs the long-term benefits of sustainable, abundant, cheap and carbon-free energy. China has provided the largest subsidies and is reaping the largest benefits. We should have subsidized more not less. Renewables have already caught up with fossil fuels in cost and will only get better with time. The transition to renewables is accelerating and will take decades, not centuries. Its inevitable now that renewable costs are lower than fossil fuels. https://electrotechrevolution.substack.com/p/rewiring-the-energy-debate?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web