Nepal is still waiting on the UN loss and damage fund a month after Rasuwa floods killed more than 1,400 people and left a rebuild costing almost $5 billion. How the fund weighs climate change's role, which it has yet to decide, will shape how fast vulnerable countries get paid.
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence40
Satellite images of the August 26 collapse show a fresh, uniform scar high on Langtang Lirung's north face. The volume researchers estimate from it, about 110 million cubic metres, averages roughly 50 metres of rock and ice.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 33%
- Operator
- Operator 52%
- Investor
- Investor 15%
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+8
- Incentives45
- Confidence62
Science News reports the El Nino region's daily sea surface anomaly hit 3.08 C on September 21, past the 3.02 C mark set in November 2015. NOAA's preferred index still ranks the 1997-98 event stronger, leaving two analogues in play for the coming seasons.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 18%
- Operator
- Operator 54%
- Investor
- Investor 28%
Reality
- Evidence70
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence68
Kearny, Arizona, draws from the Gila River, and its own river commissioner made this cut. The federal Colorado River reductions that dominate Southwest water policy do not govern what the town of 2,000 receives.
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+14
- Incentives24
- Confidence64
Satellite and seismic analyses point to ice that snapped off above 5,000 metres, blocked the Lhende Khola and burst through hours later. Almost no rain preceded it, which is why the region's flood warning tools had nothing to read.
Perspective Coverage
6 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 43%
- Operator
- Operator 38%
- Investor
- Investor 19%
Reality
- Evidence74
- Adoption62
- Hype gap−8
- Incentives34
- Confidence70
Coral chemistry from the eastern tropical Pacific has finally put a number on how much warming has strengthened El Niño. The natural-forcing alternative fails the test the same authors ran.
Perspective Coverage
6 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 47%
- Operator
- Operator 41%
- Investor
- Investor 12%
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+22
- Incentives58
- Confidence74
The flood along the Nepal-China border came out of ice and rock rather than rain, and the same researchers who count 95,000 Asian glaciers expect up to three quarters of them gone by 2100, which makes this a siting question well before it is a climate one.
Reality
- Evidence32
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+28
- Incentives45
- Confidence38
A preprint says meltwater pulses are bending the jet stream toward western European heatwaves. It offers no size for the resulting model error, and another group disputes the cause.
Reality
- Evidence28
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+46
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence32
Forecasters see this El Nino peaking well above the 2015 event and pushing 2027 to roughly 1.76C above preindustrial. That is a decade of trend warming delivered in one year.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption44
- Hype gap+16
- Incentives28
- Confidence55