Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
A Palestinian boy runs past the site of an Israeli strike on an apartment in Gaza City on Saturday. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)
An
Israeli air strike has killed a senior officer of the Hamas-run
Palestinian internal security service in the Gaza Strip along with his
associate.
Colonel Wael
El-Ledawi, head of the service in central Gaza, and Major Ramez Abu
Zraiq were both killed in the attack as they travelled in a vehicle
through Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.
The Israeli military confirmed it had carried out a strike against a Hamas militant, but had not confirmed any further details.
Palestinians inspect the damage to a house targeted by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza Strip. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)
The two deaths were confirmed by medics and police officials.
Dozens
of members of the Hamas-led police force have been killed by Israeli
forces in the past few months, including senior officials.
Israel
has accused many of the force of being members of the Hamas armed wing
who posed threats to Israel and its forces inside Gaza.
Hamas says the Israeli attacks on the police force violate the US-brokered October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The ceasefire halted full-scale fighting but has not ended the Israeli strikes from occurring almost daily, Hamas says.
Death toll rises
The
deaths of El-Ledawi and Abu Zraiq add to the rising toll of more than
1,190 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli forces since the
ceasefire took effect in October, 2025.
Of those deaths, most were civilians, Gaza health officials report.
Hamas does not usually disclose its losses.
Throughout the same period, four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza.
Since
the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, Israeli forces have
effectively taken control of an estimated 64 per cent of the Gaza
Strip.
Nearly all of Gaza's population now lives in makeshift tents or damaged buildings in dire conditions under Hamas control.
Films made in Papua New Guinea have been in danger of disintegration. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
In short:
Work
is underway to preserve Papua New Guinea's collection of more than
1,300 film reels and tapes, stored at its small National Film Institute
in Goroka, before climate change causes permanent damage.
Humid conditions and a history of flooding have created a far-from-ideal environment for maintaining a fragile film collection.
What's next?
The
National Film and Sound Archive hopes its partnership with Papua New
Guinea could lead to similar projects with other Pacific island nations,
especially as climate change poses a growing threat.
They
tell the story of Papua New Guinea's rich history and heritage, but
culturally significant films from the island nation have been at risk of
being lost forever.
"It's a race against time," film archivist Zoe Baru said.
PNG's
small National Film Institute (NFI) is located in Goroka in the
country's Eastern Highlands and houses a collection of more than 1,300
film reels and tapes.
"Our power supply sometimes is unreliable, so … storage becomes an issue," Ms Baru said.
"With climate change, the place is getting hotter."
Work is underway to preserve films recorded in the island nation. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
Humid conditions and a history of flooding have created a far from ideal environment for maintaining a fragile film collection.
"When
I first started, there were already signs of our film deteriorating and
the vinegar syndrome, it was just pungent," Ms Baru said.
Vinegar syndrome is a type of acetate film decay.
An 'urgent' partnership
Enter: the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).
Using a $200,000 cultural diplomacy grant, the institution partnered with the NFI to preserve the parts of the trove.
Culturally significant films were selected, packed and sent to Australia. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
"It was urgent," NFSA deputy chief executive Jacqui Uhlmann said.
"The
collection was at risk, but also the institution was really looking for
ways to support their staff in caring for the collection."
Culturally
significant films were selected, packed and sent to Australia, where
they were assessed by NFSA staff, cleaned up and digitised.
NFI staff received training in Canberra.
NFSA deputy chief executive Jacqui Uhlmann says the collection is at risk. (ABC News: Mark Moore)
A system, dubbed the Remote Onsite Digital Access (RODA) studio, was specially designed and sent to Goroka.
"What
the staff have said to us is that they now have really built an
understanding about AV archiving, but that the RODA system, which gives
them access to the material on-site, is particularly significant because
they can have that ongoing access to the digitised material," Ms
Uhlmann said.
'Maintaining memory'
Ms Baru, who is the NFI's only archivist, said the partnership had been transformative.
The digitisation process is slow and painstaking work. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
"We're just so grateful, it just leaves us speechless at times," she said.
"When
I first joined the NFI, I only thought that archiving meant to just
keep them stored in a cool condition and then just leave them there."
Challenges remain at the institute, including funding security, and there is plenty more content to digitise.
"It's a forever job," Ms Baru said.
"You have to continuously do things that will help sustain your archives, sustain your collections.
"This collection depends entirely on you and the practices that you set up."
The project involved film carriers being transported to the island. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
While
the earliest known moving images from Papua New Guinea date back to the
early 1900s, Ms Baru said it was not until the 1970s that residents
began holding the cameras themselves.
"For
younger people, now that they're exposed to more recent technology, the
film archives become a handy tool to them because they are learning
through watching and they're hearing their stories from the past," she
said.
"You're very emotional when you realise that what you're doing, you're actually maintaining memory for the next generation."
Telling the story of a nation
A key film preserved during the project was the 1982 movie Tukana-Husat I Asua.
It tells the story of a university dropout caught between modern life and traditional village values.
The film was gifted back to the NFI last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea's independence.
A still taken from footage recorded in Tukana in Papua New Guinea. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
"Every
nation has those cultural works that tell the story of that nation, and
for Papua New Guinea that was Tukana," Ms Uhlmann said.
The
NFSA hopes its partnership with Papua New Guinea could lead to similar
projects with other Pacific island nations, especially as climate change
poses a growing challenge for audiovisual collections.
"It made me realise how much small interventions like this have big, big cultural impact,"
Ms Uhlmann said.
"Cultural partnerships can be as impactful as economic partnerships when we talk about building relationships between nations."
Alongside fire brigades, France has deployed military personnel to help with the emergency response. (AP: Emma Da Silva)
In short:
Three
people have died and more than 250,000 people across France and Spain
have been forced to evacuate their homes as wildfires tear across
Europe.
Spain declared its
first ever civil national emergency, while the French Prime Minister
says the fires are a level "never before seen"
What's next?
Aerial
assets from across Europe have been sent to Spain to aid overwhelmed
brigades, while France deploys military personnel to help locally.
Three
people have died and more than 250,000 people across France and Spain
have been forced to evacuate their homes as wildfires tear across
Europe.
The entire Cap Ferret
peninsula, regions near Bordeaux and the town of Biscarosse in the south
of France have been evacuated after several large wildfires began
burning as early as Thursday.
Meanwhile
in Spain, the government has declared a national emergency as fires
encroach on the capital Madrid, home to about 6.8 million people.
Firefighters die on duty
French officials confirmed two firefighters died while battling a blaze near the Bordeaux airport in south-west France.
On
Saturday, the Spanish Interior Ministry confirmed a man had been found
dead in his car located in a ravine in Manises, Valencia.
Firefighters spray water in a burning forest in the Cap Ferret region, near Bordeaux. (AP Photo: Caroline Blumberg)
France fires 'never before seen'
On
Saturday, France was preparing to use a specially adapted cargo
aircraft to dump fire retardants on a wildfire that had forced the
evacuation of suburbs close to the wine region of Bordeaux.
The Airbus A400M making its first drop over the wildfire near Lacanau in France. (Reuters pool: Abdul Saboor)
So far, about 197,000 people have been left the Gironde and Landes regions close to Bordeaux.
Interior
Minister Laurent Nunez said the fire was around 30 kilometres from
Bordeaux, and was likely the biggest peacetime evacuation the country
has seen.
"Our priority is clear:
protecting human lives," Mr Lecornu said in a post on social media,
adding evacuation orders "must be respected without delay".
Evacuated residents rest at the Bordeaux-Lac Exhibition Centre, which has been turned into a shelter for displaced evacuees. (Reuters: Manon Cruz)
"The fires that are hitting our country have reached a level that has never been seen before."
Gironde
region prefect Sophie Brocas said strong winds from the west were
pushing the fire closer to the Bordeaux metropolitan area, previously
ordering people in Cap Ferret to evacuate via boat due to the speed and
unpredictability at which the fire was moving.
French
authorities said dozens of firefighters had been injured since the
wildfires began, and armed forces had been drafted in to help
overwhelmed brigades.
Soldiers were instructed to distribute 1.5 million face masks in the region, to prevent smoke inhalation.
Spain's first civil national emergency
Two
wildfires near Madrid merged on Friday, with authorities believing they
could merge again with a fire in the neighbouring Avila province.
During a visit to the fire zone, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the priority was "to save lives".
The
Spanish government declared the fires a national emergency on Friday,
with roughly 70,000 people forced to flee from villages west of Madrid.
It
is the first time Spain has declared a civil-protection national
emergency, whereas constitutional national emergencies have been
declared four times since Spain's current constitution came in force in
1978.
Spain's Civil Protection
Service said it was expecting four aerial assets to arrive on Saturday,
two from Italy and two from Greece, accompanying Dutch and Portuguese
assets that had already been sent as part of a European Union response.
Impact felt by locals
Esteban
Carrasco, owner of the Monasterio de Pelayos campsite west of Madrid,
told national broadcaster TVE about 30 mobile homes burned down when the
fire reached the site on Friday.
Mr Carrasco said about 200 campers from "humble backgrounds" had to evacuate.
"It
was a horrific disaster," he said as he showed how mobile homes on one
side of a road were destroyed while on the other side they escaped
untouched.
Locals have been hit hard by a wildfire in Le Porge. (Reuters: Stephane Mahe)
Jacqueline
Villafranca, a 38-year-old mother who evacuated to Madrid on Friday
with her husband and their two daughters, said smoke had filled her
village of Navalagamella.
"I thought everything was going to burn, the house and everything," Ms Villafranca said, sitting in a gymnasium-turned-shelter.
"Here you can breathe normally, yesterday it was unbearable."
Fig. 1. Global surface temperature anomaly in GISS analysis[1] relative to 1880-1920 mean.
Beware Media Hype. It’s Not the El Nino!
23 July 2026
James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Dylan Morgan and Jasen Vest
Abstract. Emerging
climate extremes should draw public attention to human-caused climate
change. We expect unusual sea surface temperature (SST) and global
warming the rest of this year to make 2026 hotter than 2024, despite
2024 being a peak El Nino year, while 2026 is only the lead-in year of
an emerging El Nino. Beware the “surprise” record high being blamed on
an extreme El Nino on top of global warming otherwise consistent with
IPCC estimates. Instead, record warmth provides additional evidence of
high climate sensitivity and increased net climate forcing in the past
decade. These two factors are driving an unusual increase in global SSTs
with major consequences. If you bear with our discussion to the end,
you will find some possible good news. Figures in this post are
continually updated on our website.[2] We are now on Substack[3].
June this year was cooler than June 2024,
making it the sixth consecutive month this year with a lower global
temperature than its 2024 counterpart (Fig. 1). 2026 fell another half
“length” behind 2024 and now trails the record warm year by 6.5 lengths,
if we define a length as 0.1°C-months.[4] We expect 2026 global
temperatures in the remaining 6 months of the year to exceed their 2024
counterparts by more than 6.5 lengths. That’s a tall order, because 2024
continued to be exceptionally hot in the second half of the year. We
explained the basis for our expectation in our prior
communication[5] and will reiterate the reasons briefly below, but first
let us note why it is important that the media not be allowed to
misrepresent reality.
The climate threat.
For several reasons, it is hard for people to realize how serious the
climate threat is and to take appropriate, timely actions. First,
climate change is delayed by the thermal inertia of the ocean, which
means that additional change is in the pipeline before the public sees
large climate impacts. Second, most emissions driving climate change
result from essential activities such as energy production and
agriculture. Fossil fuels, for example, have raised living standards,
and replacing that infrastructure takes time. Third, there are special
interests that resist change and spread disinformation. Therefore, it is
important that we clarify the physical basis for our expectations. We
can learn something from predictions – right or wrong – only if we make
clear what the predictions are based on, beyond simple statistics.
Fig. 2. Equatorial Pacific upper 300 m (0.16°N-0.16°S) temperature vs time and longitude.
The budding 2026-27 El Nino, lower
right of Fig.2, is compared with the other strong El Ninos (1982-83,
1997-98, 2015-16) in the period with good upper ocean data. We need
several more months of data to assess how strong the current El Nino is
relative to the other strong El Ninos, but it will be difficult for it
to match the strength of the 1997-98 El Nino. The current El Nino seems
to be emerging from a warmer western Pacific Ocean. The tropical ocean
mixed layer is much thinner than 300 m, yet is it possible that
accelerated global warming in the past decade and tropical storms have
warmed the upper 300 m in the Western Pacific? Is the rapid return of El
Nino, just 3 years after the 2023-24 El Nino, related to increased
warmth in the Western Pacific?
Fig. 3. Sea surface temperature (relative to 1880-1920 base period).[1]
Global sea surface temperature (SST) increased rapidly in the last decade (Fig. 3). [Note:
Early data suffer from poor coverage and other problems, e.g., high
1940-1946 temperature is in part an artifact of inhomogeneous data
records.] The SST increase is about three-quarters of the global
temperature increase (Fig. 4); as shown in graphs on our website
(temperature increase over land is a factor of two larger than the SST
increase and the global temperature increase is about 1.33 times the SST
increase). The acceleration of global warming in the last decade
requires that the growth rate of the net climate forcing in the last
decade was at least double its value in 1970-2010. Let’s examine what
that implies. To a good accuracy, the net human-made forcing is the sum
of the GHG (greenhouse gas) and aerosol forcings (Fig. 5). The GHG
forcing is known accurately, and there has been no large change in its
growth rate in the past decade that could account for accelerated global
warming. The aerosol forcing is unmeasured.
Fig. 4. Global surface temperature (relative to 1880-1920 base period).[1]
Fig. 5. All Greenhouse gases, CO2, aerosol, and net climate forcings.[7],[8],[9],[10]
Aerosol forcing in Fig. 5 is the IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) best estimate. The important
characteristic is that the estimated aerosol forcing changed little
during 1970-2005. In that case, observed global warming of 0.18°C per
decade (Fig. 4) was driven almost entirely by GHG forcing, which in turn
would imply that climate sensitivity is near 3°C for doubled CO2.
That result was almost foreordained by the IPCC approach to climate
analysis, which places overwhelming emphasis on GCM (global climate
model) simulations and interpretation of climate change in the past two
centuries. IPCC reports implicitly involve GCM beauty contests, in which
model simulations are compared with observed global temperature in the
past 1-2 centuries. If the aerosol forcing is unchanging during the
period 1970-2005 as in Fig. 5, the climate sensitivity required to match
the observed global warming rate post 1970 is about 3°C for doubled CO2.
That is the easiest climate sensitivity to achieve in GCMs, with
little, if any, amplifying cloud feedback. Given the many uncertain
parameters and choices in a GCM, in choosing a version of the model that
gives reasonable agreement, the choice of model parameters is set so as
to yield a climate sensitivity near 3°C for doubled CO2.
Everyone was then fat and happy: the models yielded global warming in
the right ballpark and the average model sensitivity was near 3°C for
doubled CO2.
Unfortunately, there was a fly in the ointment. IPCC’s overwhelming
focus on GCMs and global warming of the past century resulted in one
dominant constraint on the models: the need to obtain global warming of
about the observed magnitude. However, there were two uncertain
parameters: climate sensitivity and the unmeasured aerosol forcing. The
basis for believing that the aerosol forcing was unchanging during
1970-2005 was the fact that the estimated sulfur content of fossil fuels
burned in that period was nearly constant and sulfate aerosols are the
dominant human-made aerosol. If the aerosol forcing were simply due to
reflection of sunlight by the aerosols per se, constant aerosol forcing
would have been a good approximation. However, much, probably most, of
the aerosol forcing is via the effect of aerosols on clouds, and that
effect is very nonlinear. Adding aerosols to a pristine atmosphere has
more effect on clouds than adding aerosols to already heavily polluted
air. Prior to 1970, the U.S. and Europe were the main sources of
increasing aerosols, but in the next few decades emissions there began
to decline as emissions rose in Asia and as ship traffic became
extensive over a greater ocean area. Thus, aerosol forcing became
stronger. Although aerosol-cloud models are primitive, the most
realistic of the Bauer et al. models found a continuing decline of −0.5
W/m2, reducing the decadal (GHG + aerosol) forcing from about +0.45 W/m2 to +0.3 W/m2/decade.
Then, because China reduced aerosol emissions and ships were required
to use low sulfur fuel, the aerosol change in the past decade had the
opposite sign and the net GHG + aerosol forcing growth rate at least
doubled to +0.6 W/m2/decade.
Fig.
6. Earth’s satellite-observed absorbed solar radiation (ASR) and
longwave (thermal) emission to space (LW),[11] both relative to their
2000-2010 averages, and the absolute Earth energy imbalance (EEI)
calibrated with aid of Argo-measured heat storage in the ocean.[12]
Confirmation of our interpretation
is necessarily indirect, given the absence of global monitoring of the
aerosol climate forcing. One of the strongest pieces of evidence is
provided by satellite measurements of Earth’s energy balance calibrated
by measurements of heat storage in the ocean (Fig. 6). A remarkable
decrease of Earth’s albedo (reflectivity) and thus increase of solar
radiation absorbed by Earth began in 2010-2015 (upper panel of Fig. 6).
Earth responds to accelerated warming by emitting more heat to space
(middle panel), but because the ocean requires time to approach a new
equilibrium temperature, the increase in net climate forcing has pushed
Earth farther out of energy balance. The current imbalance (past decade)
is roughly twice the average imbalance during the first 15 years of
this century (lower panel of Fig. 6). As long as the planet is this far
out of energy balance, the accelerated rate of global warming will
continue.
Further support of our interpretation is provided by several independent
evaluations supporting climate sensitivity in the range 4-5°C for
doubled CO2.[13] With such high climate sensitivity, the
observed post-1970 warming rate implies the existence of a negative
forcing stronger than assumed by IPCC et al. Indeed, the zonal-mean
absorbed solar radiation reveals strong midlatitude increases of
absorbed solar radiation (see Fig. A1 in the Appendix below) that can
only be provided by reduced cloud albedos, consistent with high climate
sensitivity.
Fig. 7. NOAA OISST V2.1 The red curve is 2026; the heavy grey curve is 2024.
Image Credit: ClimateReanalyzer.org, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine.
Global SST in 2026
(red curve in Fig. 7) is now at a record high for the date. We compare
2026 with the record warm 2024, shown by the heavy grey curve in Fig. 7.
Correlations of land, ocean, and global temperature anomalies (Fig. 8)
show that the land anomalies lag the ocean anomalies by three months.
This is the expected sense of the lag, as the El Nino/La Nina cycle is
the principal source of global temperature variability and its influence
on continental temperature grows over a period of several months.
Global (land plus ocean) temperature lags SST by about 1.5 months, as
the maximum correlation is 0.92 at both 1-month and 2-month lags. The
2026 global SST surpasses the 2024 global SST by mid-June; thus, given
the lag, 2024 might remain warmer than 2026 in July, but the final five
months of the year should have 2026 as warmer than 2024. We expect the
gap in the stretch run (November, December) to be so large as to
(unfortunately) make 2026 the hottest year – until 2027, which will be
even hotter.
Fig. 8. Correlation of global, ocean, and land temperature anomalies of GISS/NOAA data.[1]
Fig. 9. NOAA OISST V2.1 The red curve is 2026; the heavy grey curve is 2023.
Image Credit: ClimateReanalyzer.org, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine.
Now let’s search for good news.
What we hope is that the accelerated warming rate will slow down. We
would like to see the gap between the two El Nino lead-in years (2026
and 2023) begin to narrow. There is perhaps a hint of a decrease in the
gap (Fig. 9).
There are reasons to hope that the warming rate might slow down. For one
thing, in 2023 solar irradiance was rising toward solar maximum of the
~11year solar cycle, while in 2026 the solar irradiance is declining.
[We will present data for all the known climate forcings in an upcoming
communication.] The solar variations are small, but not negligible. The
maximum global temperature anomaly caused by the solar cycle occurs
about a year after the maximum irradiance, which was about a year ago.
O.K., so we were grasping for straws. We didn’t really have good news.
If we want the accelerated warming to slow down, we must get Earth’s
energy imbalance (lower panel of Fig. 6) to decrease. That means the
world needs to get serious about reducing the humanmade climate forcing,
and the world has not got very serious yet. Sorry, we will keep
searching for some good news in our planet’s data.
Fig. A1. Zonal-mean Earth energy balance over the ocean (W/m2).
[1] Temperature is from Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis described by Hansen J, Ruedy R, Sato M et al. Global surface temperature change, Rev Geophys48, RG4004, 2010; Lenssen NJL, Schmidt G, Hendrickson M et al. A NASA GISTEMPv4 Observational Uncertainty Ensemble, J Geophys Res Atmos129, e2023JD040179, 2024
[2] Our communications (posts) and data are available now via Hansen’s website
while we continue to develop and populate our websites and data pages.
Figures in communications and papers that remain of current interest
will be updated at appropriate intervals, usually monthly, with the most
recent date of update indicated on the website.
[3] https://jimehansen.substack.com/
[4] For example, in January, 2024 was about 0.17°C warmer than 2026, so
it pulled 1.7 lengths ahead the first month and has been stretching its
lead every month. This definition gives a bit too much weight to
February, but we want a simple horse race analogy and the variable month
length will come out in the wash at the end of the year.
[5] Hansen J, Kharecha P, Morgan D, Vest J. 2026 On Track for Warmest Year, 30 April 2026
[6] Hansen J, Sato M, Kharecha P, von Schuckmann K, Beerling DJ, Cao J,
Marcott S, Masson-Delmotte V, Prather MJ, Rohling EJ, Shakun J, Smith P,
Lacis A, Russell G, Ruedy R, Young people’s burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions, Earth Syst Dynam8, 1-40, 2017.
[7] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis [Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Pirani A et al. (eds)]. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021
[8] Forster PM, Smith C, Walsh T et al. Indicators of global climate change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence, Earth Syst. Sci. Data17, 2641-80, 2025 https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/2641/2025/essd-17-2641-2025-supplement.pdf
[9] The CO2 and all GHG forcings are based on the formulae in
reference 10, but it is shown in reference 10 that our GHG forcings are
in close agreement with those of IPCC (reference 7).
[10] Hansen JE, Sato M, Simons L et al. “Global warming in the pipeline,” Oxford Open Clim. Chan. 3 (1) (2023): doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
[11] Loeb NG, Johnson GC, Thorsen TJ et al. Satellite and ocean data reveal marked increase in Earth’s heating rate. Geophys Res Lett48, e2021GL093047, 2021
[12] von Schuckmann K, Cheng L, Palmer MD et al. Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?Earth Sys Sci Data12, 2013-41, 2020
[13] Hansen J, Kharecha P, Morgan D, Vest J., Yes, 2026 is on Track to be the Hottest Year, 12 June 2026
