Shocking Revelations Out of West Antarctica

Robert Hunziker

 July 17, 2026

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Image by Cassie Matias.

It’s mid-winter but a large area of West Antarctica that should be frozen solid is not frozen. What’s up?

Antarctica is the coldest spot on the planet where the average winter temperature is -34.4°C (-30°F), but it does vary by region. For example, inland locations like the South Pole average around -60°C (-76°F), while coastal areas such as the Antarctic Peninsula range between -12°C and -20°C (10°F to -4°F).

The area recently experienced a winter heatwave, but that has passed. Winter heatwaves happen on occasion, but the ice always, always, always refreezes for as long as anybody can remember. But satellite photos d/d July 12, 2026, by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Snow and Ice Data Center show a large portion of West Antarctica 150,000 square miles that’s typically frozen this time of year shockingly ice free! Something is wrong.

Scientists Identify Thin Vulnerability of West Antarctica

Of even more concern than failure of refreezing in the dead of winter, the following headline appears in Space Daily d/d June 20, 2026 and serves as a shocking backdrop to the recent news: Scientists say the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Collapse With Very Little Additional Warming and the Four Metres of Sea Level Rise that Would Follow Cannot be Stopped Once it Begins.

“A modelling study published in Communications Earth & Environment in June 2025 found that West Antarctic Ice Sheet could begin an irreversible collapse at ocean temperatures between zero and 0.25°C above current levels — meaning the threshold may have already been reached,” Ibid.

Still, nobody really knows for sure how soon or how far sea levels will rise, but the direction is known. It’s up!

That was then. Today, parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet don’t refreeze. Hmm.

Civilization is currently living through break-neck climate change. It’s reflected in erratic climate system behavior. The entire global system has gone bonkers, unpredictable, ecosystems threatened everywhere. As it happens, science has isolated the main culprit as too much heat; it’s excessive greenhouse gas emissions CO2 from burning fossil fuels.

CO2 has been on a rampage as oil and gas companies crank up production.

Based Upon AI Analyses, July 2026: “Carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change. It traps heat, so the more of it in the air, the warmer the planet runs, which is why its concentration is the most closely watched number in climate science. Almost everyone has seen the chart of that number climbing since the 1950s.But the line is not just going up, it is getting steeper. The air took on more CO2 in the last decade than in any 10-year stretch since record-keeping began in 1959, and this past May the monthly average at Mauna Loa hit 432 parts per million, the highest ever measured.”

It’s hard for scientists to accept global warming so pervasive, so unexpected that it halts Antarctic refreezing in the dead of winter. No scientific models predicted this.

As a prelude, the past couple of years science did provide clues. An article in Inside Ecology d/d May 11, 2026 describes the background: Antarctic Sea Ice Defied Global Warming for Decades – Now Hidden Ocean Heat is Breaking Through, to wit: “For decades, Antarctica seemed to defy global warming. Since satellites began monitoring the poles in the late 1970s, the seasonal growth and retreat of Antarctic sea ice – frozen seawater that expands around the continent each winter – appeared remarkably resilient. It was often described as the ‘heartbeat of the planet.”

The “one-in-3.5 million” Happenstance

“Since 2015 Antarctic sea ice has declined sharply. In 2023, winter sea ice extent fell to record lows — so far below the long-term average that scientists considered it an event with roughly a one-in-3.5 million probability of occurring by chance,” Ibid.

A “one-in-3.5 million” proposition demands attention. Those odds demand analysis, a wake-up call, an omen of change, and sure enough, three years later the strangest thing happens, refreeze fails in a region of brutally cold West Antarctica.

There are other omens, e.g., Hektoria Glacier (Antarctica) retreated 8 kilometers (5 miles) in only two months; one-half of the structure collapsing in record time. This is the fastest glacier collapse ever, and the message to the world is very clear: Global Warming looks like it’s ahead of schedule. (Antarctica Just Saw the Fastest Glacier Collapse Ever Recorded, ScienceDaily d/d February 26, 2026)

Another early warning signal: “Researchers have discovered dozens of new methane seeps littering the ocean floor in the Ross Sea coastal region of Antarctica, raising concerns of an unknown positive climate feedback loop that could accelerate global warming,” a decidedly negative configuration. (Methane Leaks Multiplying Beneath Antarctic Ocean Spark Fears of Climate Doom Loop, LiveScience d/d Oct. 15, 2025)

And more forewarnings: Polar scientists have been warning, with more fervor than ever before, of a rapidly deteriorating Antarctica, especially since 2024. Their warnings via press releases address the public at large; as politicians, especially Americans, care less. Major warnings by scientists since 2024: (1) August 2024 the 11^th Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research attended by 1,500 scientists: Gino Casassa, glaciologist head of Chilean Antarctic Institute claimed: “Based upon current trends, sea levels will be up 13’ by 21oo.” This is the first time a high-level scientist has made such an alarming forecast. (2) November 2024, 450 polar scientists called an emergency meeting in Australia to make a public announcement: “If we don’t act, and quickly, the melting of Antarctica ice could cause catastrophic sea level rise around the globe within our lifetimes.” This is the first time polar scientists have predicted ‘catastrophic sea level rise with our lifetimes.’ (3) A February 2025 study in Nature: Worldwide Glacier Meltdown Underway, a 20-year study by 35 international teams identified terrestrial glacier losses that are larger than Greenland and Antarctica but not found in scientific models of sea level rise, yet described “staggering loses” of terrestrial glacier systems.

The West Antarctic downturn over the past decade was not predicted by climate models. This means the decline is especially concerning and suggest things may be unfolding faster than scientific models can capture.

Accordingly, that matters a lot because sea ice reflects sunlight back into space, one of the planet’s major albedo (reflective) sources that helps keep the climate system stable and it helps drive ocean currents that lock away heat and carbon deep underwater. This sudden change will bring serious far-reaching consequences for the climate system and for Antarctica’s ecosystems, already starting to show the impact.

Why should anybody care if Antarctic sea ice does not refreeze? Most people will surely shake it off as one more issue not to worry about today. And that is understandable. But when the dashboard of their cars blink red, they freak out, gotta find a service station immediately or the engine might freeze-up, who knows what’s going on?

In similar fashion, Antarctica is the planet’s dashboard flashing red, nonstop.

The failure of the nations of the world to cut CO2 emissions, as agreed by 195 countries at Paris 2015, cannot be talked about enough. Only a couple of countries, out of 195 signatories, are tracking Paris 2015 commitments to cut CO2 emissions by 2030. They agreed to cut CO2 emissions by 2030 via Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the core climate action plans submitted by countries under the 2015 Paris Agreement. They collectively (to a person, 195 delegates) recognized excessive fossil fuel emissions as an existential risk to society in 2015. That remains but it’s much worse now with global heat thriving like never before on record-setting CO2 emissions.

Where are they?

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Why The Indus Waters Treaty Matters, In A Warming World – OpEd




Map of the Indus River basin. Credit: Kmhkmh, Wikipedia Commons.

July 18, 2026 0 Comments
By Amina Jabbar

Key Takeaways:

Climate change is fundamentally altering the Indus Basin’s hydrology, with faster glacier melt, erratic monsoons, prolonged droughts, and more frequent floods creating new levels of uncertainty for water availability across South Asia.

Cooperative transboundary governance is becoming essential for climate resilience, as shared data, early warning systems, joint forecasting, and coordinated planning enable better preparation for extreme events than unilateral action.

The article argues that effective river basin management must integrate climate science, ecosystem health, and food security, positioning ongoing dialogue and institutional cooperation as critical tools for regional stability and sustainable development in an era of accelerating environmental change.

Climate change is, in a practical sense, changing how the world’s river systems behave. Across South Asia, higher temperatures, faster glacier breakdown, monsoons that act more erratically, long dry spells, plus more common flooding events are all reshaping the hydrology in the Indus Basin. What used to look like a straightforward question of how to share water is turning into something else climate resilience, and also basic human security.

The Indus Basin is home to hundreds of millions of people, and many of those communities depend on relatively steady river behavior. Farming depends on seasonal water timing, drinking water systems follow the same pattern, hydropower needs predictable volumes, fisheries rely on water levels, and wetlands plus nearby local ecosystems are tied into the basin’s natural pulse. But climate change is unsettling that pulse, and it is doing it with a level of uncertainty that is new and hard to plan around.

Against this backdrop cooperative handling of shared rivers becomes more and more crucial, because if you do not coordinate it, the whole system just gets harder. With more stable institutional arrangements, regular technical discussions, and openly shared information, riparian states can usually react better to climate related threats than they would by acting alone.


What the research shows is that the Himalayan glaciers, which are basically the origin of many key South Asian rivers, are changing in noticeable ways as temperatures climb. Even if glacier melt can give a short-lived boost to river flows in certain places, the longer-term loss of glacier mass might shift and reduce the seasonal water supplies. On top of that, precipitation patterns are also moving, so you end up with intense flooding in some periods and prolonged dry stretches in others. This combination makes water planning way more intricate than before, in a kind of ongoing back and forth.

Extreme weather events seem to be happening more and more across South Asia. Big, catastrophic floods have pushed millions of people out of their homes, smashed parts of infrastructure, and basically disrupted farming production. At the same time, drought conditions have been doing their own damage, lowering crop yields, draining groundwater, and raising the stakes for water access when resources are already limited.

It’s clear that transboundary water governance can’t just lean on old historical hydrological patterns, like everything will behave the same way. Climate adaptation needs institutions that can deal with uncertainty, and they have to do it through scientific cooperation, sharing data, and synchronized planning. One of the most useful parts in international river agreements is the regular back-and-forth exchange of hydrological and meteorological information. Measurements of river flow, precipitation logs, and flood forecasts give authorities a better chance to prepare for emergencies, well before disasters actually happen.


Early warning systems are kinda really important in the Indus Basin, because upstream rainfall or glacial lake outburst floods can hit downstream communities fast. When communication happens in time between riparian states, emergency agencies are able to mobilize resources, get people to safer areas, and ultimately lower the overall disaster losses, not just the immediate damage.

Climate adaptation also rides on improving the accuracy of seasonal forecasting and honestly that means better timing and fewer surprises. With shared scientific data, the water allocation choices get more solid, reservoir management becomes more controlled, and agricultural planning can be done with more confidence. And as climate variability keeps ramping up, this kind of cooperation becomes more and more valuable, even if that wasn’t obvious at first.

Food security is another big challenge. Agriculture in much of the Indus Basin still relies heavily on irrigation. So farmers need reliable water availability to decide planting schedules, choose crops, and set irrigation practices. If that predictability drops, the whole season can turn into a real problem.

Climate induced uncertainty kind of complicates these choices. Like delayed monsoons, irregular snowfall, and shifting river flows can mess with agricultural output quite a lot. Cooperative basin management can help create a more steadier working situation for both governments and farming communities. At the same time, environmental sustainability should get more focus too. Rivers aren’t just water supplies for people to drink; they also hold up wetlands, forests, fisheries, and biodiversity, which in turn provide important ecosystem services. Environmental flows, for instance, help keep water quality healthier, sustain wildlife habitats and also improve resilience when climate shocks happen.


Healthy ecosystems, kind of like natural infrastructure, they often do a lot of the heavy lifting. For instance, wetlands can reduce flood severity by soaking up excess water, and forests improve watershed stability, also lowering erosion. Keeping these ecological “assets” in place pairs well with more conventional engineering, and it helps climate adaptation last longer.

International water law has, more and more, acknowledged that when rivers cross borders the answer usually isn’t unilateral control, it’s cooperation. Even though countries naturally try to safeguard their national interests, shared river basins tend to work better when there are clear, predictable legal rules, plus ongoing technical engagement.

Climate change actually reinforces this principle, a bit like its “pushes” on everything already there. When uncertainty gets bigger than the value of institutions that help people communicate, sort out technical disputes and also nudge evidence-oriented decisions goes up too. Trust building steps become especially important when the water world is changing quickly in hydrological terms, like the baseline starts to move, fast. The Indus Basin shows the wider global dilemma of governing shared natural resources during a period of environmental shift, not just locally but across borders. Similar complications show up for nations dealing with the Mekong, the Nile, the Danube and plenty of other cross boundary rivers. What the basins have been teaching, over time, is that steady dialogue generally leads to more durable results than long institutional disengagement periods, even if disengagement feels “cleaner” in the moment.

Future water governance should, therefore start weaving climate science in a more systematic way into basin management. Like, joint research helps, but also better monitoring technologies and satellite observations together with modern forecasting systems can strengthen the shared view of emerging risks . That means investment in climate resilient infrastructure, groundwater management, efficient irrigation technologies and ecosystem restoration should go alongside legal agreements. Technical cooperation between scientists, engineers and water managers might prove just as vital as the diplomatic negotiations themselves.

Ultimately, climate change is turning water from something pretty predictable, into one that is getting more and more uncertain. And with that shift, cooperation, transparency and institutional resilience kind of move to the front row. Governments might argue about political questions, sure, but the shared environmental realities across the Indus Basin push everyone to keep talking and keep working together. South Asia’s future stability will hinge not just on how much water there is, but also on how well the countries cooperate to deal with climate risks that are getting larger all the time. In an era where environmental change is accelerating, cooperative river governance stays one of the more practical levers for building regional resilience, safeguarding ecosystems, and backing sustainable development.

About Amina Jabbar
Amina Jabbar is a Research Fellow at Quaid e Azam University. She can be reached at missaminajabbar@gmail.com

 

Desert dust in Europe is increasing

Paul Scherrer Institute

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PSI researchers Kaspar Dällenbach, Petros Vasilakos and Imad El Haddad (from left to right) have compiled measurement data on ground-level desert dust through a pan-European research network. The results of their analysis show: desert dust is a growing problem. 

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Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Markus Fischer

While, thanks to strict regulations, particulate matter air pollution due to emissions from human activity in transportation, households, and industry are decreasing in Europe, another source is developing in the opposite direction: desert dust.

To determine more accurately the level of desert dust pollution in different regions of the continent, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, in cooperation with colleagues from across Europe, have collected data acquired over the past ten years from more than a hundred measuring stations and combined it with artificial intelligence. The result: in southern Europe, the average concentration of desert dust is 5.3 micrograms per cubic metre of air – more than twice as high as in central and northern Europe, where an average of 2.1 micrograms was measured. Overall, the amount of dust has increased by about half a microgram per cubic metre during this period. “That corresponds to an increase in this dust pollution of ten to twenty-five percent,” says project leader Kaspar Dällenbach from the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences. “This is not negligible, both in terms of the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of large solar installations and with regard to the health impacts of increased particulate matter pollution.”

To enable scientists to make longer-term comparisons, the relevant data collection at most measuring stations does not extend far enough into the past. Therefore the researchers also used ice core data from Colle Gnifetti on the Swiss-Italian border in the study: dust particles trapped in the ice of the Alpine glacier over recent centuries reveal that the concentration of desert dust there has more than doubled over the course of industrialisation – that is, over the last 150 years.

Desert dust is easy to distinguish from other particulate matter

As a reliable indicator for desert dust, the researchers used the concentration of aluminium in airborne particulate matter. This element is characteristic of dust particles transported from deserts. Particulate matter from urban construction sites, for example, is very high in calcium, and particules from traffic and household emissions contains mainly soot or carbon from the combustion of petroleum. “Through chemical analyses, we can determine the origin of particulate matter found at ground level very accurately,” says Petros Vasilakos, another researcher at the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences and lead author of the study.

There are concerns that desert dust concentrations will continue to rise, partially undermining efforts to curb human-caused emissions of particulate matter. This study identifies the increasing desiccation of the Sahara in North Africa as the cause. In addition, altered atmospheric circulation patterns are bringing increasingly strong winds from this region to Europe. “It is not yet definitively clear to what extent human-induced climate change has contributed to this development or whether it is further intensifying it,” says Kaspar Dällenbach. “However, our current understanding suggests that the increase in desert dust is at least facilitated by human greenhouse gas emissions and the associated global warming. This leads to drier conditions in certain regions and the expansion of deserts.”

Desert dust can put stress on human health

With regard to the health consequences of elevated desert dust concentrations in Europe, the researchers evaluated the current state of epidemiological studies. Long-term effects from transported desert dust, such as pneumoconiosis, asthma, and chronic bronchitis, could only be proven definitively through extensive long-term studies. The immediate increase in mortality on days with elevated levels of airborne desert dust, however, is well documented: measurably more people die as a result of heart attacks and respiratory problems on days with dust pollution than on other days. “The number of storms carrying desert dust to us from the Sahara and the Arabian Desert has not actually increased,” Petros Vasilakos says. “But they have become more intense over the ten years studied, and as a result they are now transporting more dust to Europe than they did before.”

Southern Europe is particularly affected – from Greece in the east through Italy to Spain and Portugal. The study also detected elevated dust levels in western France. “This is because,” explains co-author Imad El Haddad, who also conducts research at the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences, “air masses from the Sahara often flow out into the Atlantic and then turn north again towards western Europe.”

A unique combination of physical data and AI

What makes this study special is, first of all, that it represents probably the most comprehensive data collection to date on desert dust in Europe: “We included virtually all available measurement series on this topic, because we were able to recruit more than 50 colleagues across Europe to participate,” says El Haddad. The PSI researchers benefited from their membership in the pan-European research network ACTRIS, in which aerosol researchers join forces to coordinate their series of long-term measurements of aerosols, clouds, and trace gases internationally and to make them freely accessible.

Furthermore, the researchers used artificial intelligence to extend existing, purely physical models of particulate matter distribution: “While conventional models are good at predicting strong desert dust episodes, they rarely capture smaller dust events and have difficulty accurately determining the dust concentration at ground level,” says Kaspar Dällenbach. “With our measurement data and the AI, which estimates concentrations for other regions of Europe on the basis of measurements from more than a hundred locations, we were able to supplement the model with this information and thus create a reliable, health-relevant particulate matter map of dust particles for all of Europe.” The data collected in this way can now also serve as a basis for future studies investigating long-term health consequences.

Unlike particulate matter directly attributable to human activity, such as exhaust fumes, chimney smoke, and abrasion processes, desert dust emissions cannot be reduced by any direct intervention. However, comprehensive climate protection measures to limit global warming could, in the long term, help to curb the desiccation of desert areas and thus the expansion of these dust sources. For now, though, Europe has to live with the increase in desert dust.

It would be conceivable to establish warning systems for high concentrations, similar to those used for urban particulate matter, so that particularly sensitive individuals or those with lung conditions can take precautions on dusty days. The energy sector would also benefit: desert dust in the air shades solar panels and accumulates on them, reducing their electricity production. If energy providers could anticipate this, they could compensate by boosting production from other power plants, thus ensuring the stability of the grid.

Text: Jan Berndorff

About PSI

The Paul Scherrer Institute PSI develops, builds and operates large, complex research facilities and makes them available to the national and international research community. The institute's own key research priorities are in the fields of future technologies, energy and climate, health innovation and fundamentals of nature. PSI is committed to the training of future generations. Therefore about one quarter of our staff are post-docs, post-graduates or apprentices. Altogether PSI employs 2300 people, thus being the largest research institute in Switzerland. The annual budget amounts to approximately CHF 450 million. PSI is part of the ETH Domain, with the other members being the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne, as well as Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology), Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) and WSL (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research).

Further information

ACTRIS research network

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-026-10743-w 

Article Title

Rising dust pollution threatens European air quality in a changing climate

Article Publication Date

15-Jul-2026

 

‘Amazing moths’: Study pinpoints insect habitat that draws grizzlies to Glacier peaks

Washington State University

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PULLMAN, Wash. — When grizzly bears clamber onto the talus slopes high in Glacier National Park, they’re searching for an abundant, fatty meal: army cutworm moths.

The inch-long moths hatch on the Great Plains and fly en masse to escape the heat in the stony upper reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Grizzlies hoover them up by the thousands — at about a half-calorie each — as they fatten up for winter.

“The moths are full of fat, and they're also quite nourishing in protein, so they satisfy two macronutrients of a grizzly bear's diet like few natural food resources do,” said Erik Peterson, who led a three-year project studying the moths as a graduate student in Washington State University’s School of the Environment. “Their abdomens are swollen with liquid fat.”

But these moths, which Peterson refers to as “bear butter,” congregate in just 0.3% of the park land, in high, hard-to-reach places. Peterson and his fellow researchers have mapped this habitat to give park managers a tool for protecting grizzly foraging sites as backcountry recreation grows, as part of new research published in the journal Biological Conservation.

From 2019 to 2021, the team studied moth and bear activity in two ways: they conducted ground surveys of potential moth habitat and then surveyed bear activity inside potential moth habitat from helicopter so they could separately model moth habitat and bear foraging sites for comparison. It was arduous, time-consuming work.

“The effort involved in collecting this data cannot be overemphasized,” said Daniel Thornton, an associate professor in the School of the Environment and a co-author of the paper. “Climbing up to talus slopes to survey for moths across Glacier with a team of technicians, going up in helicopters to search for bears ... all happening in a flagship national park. It was a huge effort, and amazing that Erik was able to pull it off and get such interesting and important data.”

The findings also contribute new depth to the understanding of bear-moth dynamics. Researchers identified specific characteristics of the talus environments that draw the moths — from the size of the stones to indices of soil moisture  — and demonstrated that the presence of the moths is a key driver of grizzly foraging behavior.

Peterson, who worked for the National  Park Service in Glacier for a decade before going to graduate school, conducted the research as a student in Thornton’s lab; Peterson earned his master’s degree at WSU and has moved on to a research position at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan. Other co-authors include John Waller of the National Park Service, Don White Jr. of the University of Arkansas-Monticello, and independent researcher James Pierce.

The project was funded by the Glacier National Park Conservancy and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Compared to iconic grizzly bears, army cutworm moths have a tiny public profile — but their role in Rocky Mountain alpine ecology is large. They hatch on the Great Plains and low-lying areas in the Rockies, and during their caterpillar phase they can be a destructive agricultural pest. Then they pupate into adult moths and fly to the high reaches of Rocky Mountains in the late spring, tucking into cool, shaded spaces in talus fields, where bears sniff them out and devour them in large numbers. In early autumn, the surviving moths fly back to the plains to mate and lay eggs for the next generation, like salmon returning from the ocean to spawn.

“Of all the foods that a grizzly bear eats, the story of this moth might be the most amazing,” Peterson said.

The work can help park managers make decisions about how to protect grizzly foraging habitat. Grizzlies are abundant in Glacier relative to other wild places – but so are people, with some 3 million visitors to the park each year.

While most stay on or near roads and developed areas, backcountry recreation is increasing as well, including climbers on the park’s peaks. The presence of people near foraging areas can interfere with the grizzlies’ most important priority during summer – consuming enough calories to survive the winter.

“There are moth sites in Glacier where there are waves of climbing  groups  scrambling by each day,” he said. “On a given day, there may be upwards of 20 bears foraging for moths at major sites   If a grizzly bear is having to watch people pass by, whether it's alarmed or habituated to people, it’s there to eat calories, not to watch us.”

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Journal

Biological Conservation

DOI

10.1016/j.biocon.2026.111892 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Broad-scale models of a foundational alpine insect: Implications for grizzly bear ecology and conservation