Jonathan Overpeck

Sea Levels Are Already Higher Than Many Scientists Think, New Study Shows

“from a global perspective, the findings indicate that hundreds of millions more people — particularly in… Southeast Asian & Pacific nations — are living closer to sea level than widely assumed by Western experts & policymakers”

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/c...

Western US snowpack is still looking BAD. Hope for snow, but plan for low river flows and severe wildfire risk.

This is why our electricity bills are so high right now — Ars Technica New data shows electricity rates rose 5 percent nationwide in 2025.

There are a growing number of reasons why electricity prices went up so much in 2025, and will go up more in the future. Bad energy policy is one reason, surging natural gas prices, infrastructure build out for increasing demand, and now another war.

apple.news/A-J8aQtEXQ0m...

Blood Moon setting over Lake Superior. Another Great Lake looking great!

The College Backlash Is a Mirage Americans are more pessimistic than ever about the value of a degree—but enrollment keeps going up.

College degrees are worth it more than ever, and people know a degree is going to help build many types of career: "Despite the reported skepticism of higher education, enrollment in four-year colleges and universities is growing."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Fossil fuel giant wins $370 million tax break for burning gas as an ‘alternative fuel’ The IRS allowed one of the world’s largest exporters of natural gas to claim its heavily polluting tankers are low-emissions “motorboats,” the company said.

No corruption here…
“The IRS ruling appears to allow one of the world’s largest exporters of natural gas to claim its heavily polluting tankers are low-emissions “motorboats.”

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

VOICES: Why solar still makes sense With 10-year payback and 30-year lifespan, solar panels protect Metro Detroit residents from rising utility costs and blackouts.

Can't stress this enough: "Here’s what fossil fuel corporations don’t want you to know: solar has officially become the cheapest form of energy in history"
planetdetroit.org/2026/02/sola...

Michigan going electric... Fun facts I just learned: EV & plug-in hybrid EV registrations in MI jumped 126% from 2023 to 2025, & the number of public DC fast chargers in the state jumped 84% from 2024 to 2025. Pretty easy (& more affordable) to ditch the old internal combustion vehicle in MI

Supreme Court’s Michigan pipeline case is about Native rights and fossil fuels, not just technical legal procedure The issue in front of the US Supreme Court is seemingly mundane, about federal or state jurisdiction. But it is actually much bigger, encompassing some key questions of the 21st century.

Excellent overview of the Line 5 SCOTUS case and the threats the pipeline poses to the Great Lakes, to Tribal rights, to state rights, and to climate change. It's infrastructure of a by-gone era that threatens too much.
theconversation.com/supreme-cour...

From Energy Use to Air Quality, the Many Ways Data Centers Affect US Communities Energy prices and water use aren't the only ways data centers affect U.S. communities. We break down the impacts — and how some states are dealing with them.

Excellent new data center overview doc. Note, however, that this is not a great idea: "Two-thirds of U.S. data centers built or in development since 2022 are in water-stressed areas."
www.wri.org/insights/us-...

Battery storage costs keep plummeting, as installations rocket up. One bright spot for the U.S. power grid.
www.canarymedia.com/articles/bat...

Climate change is already costing Colorado. A new report estimates how much costs will rise through 2050. Shorter ski seasons, hotter summers, longer wildfire seasons, increasingly burdened infrastructure and other climate-related impacts could cost Colorado up to $37 billion by 2050.  This is according t...

Colorado has an idea what climate change will be costing the state by mid-century: "Climate trends like deepening drought and extreme heat could wind up costing Colorado up to $37 billon"
www.skyhinews.com/news/climate...

Is Climate Change Making Inflation Worse?

Climate change also driving up inflation? “There’s mounting evidence that more frequent extreme weather events do make some things more expensive. But how that plays out depends on where you live”

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/c...

Economists Still Agree on Climate Change | The Regulatory Review Despite the retraction of a recent study, economists still agree that climate change is expensive and dangerous.

1 of 38 studies retracted, consensus remains strong: "An overwhelming majority of economists agree that the damages of climate change will be large, and the costs of climate inaction significantly exceed the costs of action."
www.theregreview.org/2026/02/23/h...

Snowball Earth might have had a dynamic climate and open seas Sediments from Scotland hint that ocean-atmosphere interactions continued more than 600 million years ago despite widespread ice.

As a fan of varves (annual lake sediment layers), this story is cool. We knew the ancient "snowball" Earth climate was really more of a slush ball, but quite interesting given that the distribution of continents 700 million yrs ago was way different.
www.sciencenews.org/article/snow...

Opinion | Can you spot these misconceptions around wind power? Take our quiz. The aesthetics of wind turbines are debatable. The fact of their increasing impact is not.

Take this quiz and learn about onshore wind electricity generation - the facts may surprise. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...

What do people know about data centers? We explain in 5 charts. A new POLITICO poll shows that views about the artificial intelligence hubs swing if projects are associated with President Donald Trump.

Fascinating survey-based insight into how Americans think about data centers in their communities, as well as the politics of data centers. Most American's support data centers as long as...
www.eenews.net/articles/wha...

A big majority of Americans favor the regulation of CO2 (the most impactful greenhouse gas) as a pollutant. Strongly supported by science too!

As temperatures rise, US incomes fall Climate change is capable of affecting the entire economy

Costs of climate change continue to rise: "Global warming has cut incomes in the U.S. by 12% since 2000"
theweek.com/environment/...

The State of the Climate 2026 | Ep242: Zeke Hausfather How do we model the climate system? How warm will 2026 be? And can geoengineering be anything more than a bandaid? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits…

Excellent pod on recent and future climate change, climate action, and geoenginneering pros/cons. www.cleaningup.live/the-state-of...

What the China-Canada EV Trade Deal Really Means Podcast Episode · Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins · 01/28/2026 · 46m

Interesting pod: More Chinese EVs coming to N America, and “Fortress America” and continued anti-EV federal policy could mean American carmakers will “crumble.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

‘Ghost forests’ are even more widespread than we thought These haunting landscapes, with their unmistakable gray, barren tree trunks rising like sentinels, offer one of the most startling and recognizable signals of a changing climate.

Guess what’s killing trees. “The coastal forests most at risk from sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion sequester massive amounts of carbon. They mitigate the impact of storms, play a key role in water quality for nearby communities and provide habitat...”

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

We just finished writing an update on how climate change is impacting the CO River flows - chapter 2 in this short compilation on the growing CO River crisis. www.colorado.edu/center/gwc/2...

Fate of Colorado River hangs in balance as political battle brews The fight over the dwindling Colorado River has long been nonpartisan. Now an unprecedented meeting of governors over the issue raises the political stakes.

Amazing this piece doesn’t highlight the primary cause of the dwindling river flows - climate change caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Trump’s biggest climate rollback stalls over fears it will lose in court Trump officials have delayed finalizing the repeal of the agency’s “endangerment finding” over concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge.

True enough: “People see it right outside their windows. So they’re just not going to win on the science…It is EPA’s duty under the Clean Air Act to curb the emissions that are driving those disasters.” www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

EV charging keeps expanding despite Trump The U.S. added a record number of public electric-vehicle fast chargers last year, keeping up with demand from growing number of EV owners.

Surprising good news: "The nation’s public fast-charging network expanded by 30% over the course of 2025...Reliability scores, which Paren measures as the share of charging sessions that are successfully completed, ticked up in 2025 too, averaging 93%." www.canarymedia.com/articles/ev-...

How the polar vortex and warm ocean intensified a major US winter storm The atmosphere is a complicated place. Warm temperatures in one spot can contribute to brutally cold storms somewhere else.

Excellent piece on the big "polar vortex" event we're in and how the impacts of such events can get supercharged by a warming climate. And remember - we'll always get winter storms in winter.
theconversation.com/how-the-pola...

Column | How bad is your stove for your health? Look it up. Stanford University scientists’ new model estimates exposure to the pollutant nitrogen dioxide based on home size, how often the stove is used and where people live.

Gas stoves are surprisingly unhealthy. Take the survey: “You might notice that no matter what you do, short of using an electric stove, your total NO2 exposure still puts you at a high rate of exposure”

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Winter storm doesn't disprove climate change, despite Trump's claim. Scientists explain why. President Trump cited a major winter storm​ as evidence to suggest that global warming does not exist — a misleading claim that has been consistently debunked by climate experts.

Every winter, folks that are either biased or not paying attention to science claim the cold is evidence that there is no global warming, when in fact cold is just evidence of winter. In fact, climate change can make the cold more extreme.
www.cbsnews.com/news/winter-...

It may be chilly in parts of the U.S. due to a weakening of the polar vortex and incursion of polar air southward, but in many parts of the Southern Hemisphere they are seeing extreme hot temperatures made all the more extreme by climate change. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...