The term “global warming” is typically used to describe increasing global temperatures as a result of human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases.
However, unusually cold events are often portrayed as being made worse by human activity, as a result of increased variability or a disruption of the “polar vortex” in a fast-warming world.
There is significant debate in the scientific community about whether rapid Arctic warming and sea ice loss could disrupt atmospheric circulation patterns and lead to cold-air outbreaks in the northern hemisphere mid-latitude regions.
In a new analysis, Carbon Brief shows that few places in the world have seen an increase in extreme cold days over the past 55 years.
If climate change is influencing atmospheric circulation, any effects on extreme cold appear to be more than compensated by the rapid winter warming the world has experienced.
A controversial hypothesis
In an episode of Marketplace’s How We Survive podcast last year, the host – US radio journalist Kai Ryssdal – noted that climate change is expected to cause “hotter hots [and] colder colds in unexpected parts of the world”.
This is not an uncommon sentiment, with the media commonly attributing extreme cold events to human activity, particularly during episodes of bitter cold or polar-vortex events.
Some researchers have argued that these extreme cold snaps might be becoming more frequent due to reduced sea ice and Arctic amplification – the phenomenon where the Arctic warms more quickly than the global average.
At the core of the hypothesis that Arctic warming could influence mid-latitude cold extremes is the fact that a rapidly warming Arctic changes the temperature difference between the poles and the equator.
Normally, the strong contrast in temperature between these regions drives key patterns of atmospheric circulation, including the jet stream. According to proponents of this theory, when Arctic temperatures rise faster than those farther south, atmospheric circulation can weaken, meander, or buckle more frequently. As a result, cold polar air can spill down into areas that are usually less frigid.
A related argument focuses on how diminished sea ice – particularly in the Barents and Kara seas – might disrupt the atmosphere. Less sea ice means more heat and moisture escapes from the ocean surface into the air, which can potentially alter weather patterns downstream. This can boost the odds of “blocking high” weather systems, or unusual circulation patterns that pull cold air into mid-latitudes.
However, there are relatively few studies that attribute an increase in cold extremes – or an individual extreme cold event – to human activity.
Carbon Brief’s attribution map – which charts extreme weather events around the world and their links to human-caused warming – includes 33 studies that examine extreme cold events specifically.
Of these, 24 studies found that the extreme cold was made less likely due to climate change, six found no discernible human influence and three found insufficient data to conclude either way. Only one extreme event attribution study in the database found that a cold extreme – severe frosts in Western Australia in 2016 – was made more likely due to climate change. However, even that study noted that “warmer temperatures may have offset or countered this effect of the circulation driver”.
Many climate scientists disagree with the hypothesis that warming could lead to increased cold outbreaks, arguing that cold extremes are decreasing overall in a warming world.
Others contend that causality cannot yet be proved and that both models and observations provide limited support for a significant role of climate change in mid-latitude cold events.
In addition, observed data reveals that, although cold spells still occur, they have become less frequent and less intense over recent decades. Most modeling studies do not consistently reproduce more frequent or severe cold outbreaks. Instead, they often show that the overall warming trend dominates, making cold extremes rarer over time.
This suggests that, if there were a connection between climate change and extreme cold events, the long-term warming trend will still likely lead to fewer, milder cold outbreaks – and that any effect from Arctic amplification would be relatively small.
Have any regions experienced increased cold events?
To help assess the effects of climate change on extreme cold events, Carbon Brief used gridded daily minimum global temperature data from Berkeley Earth to calculate how the temperatures of the coldest 5% of the days of the year have changed since the 1970s.
Minimum daily temperatures reflect the single coldest measurement taken over the course of the day. (While the coldest 5% of days is a somewhat arbitrary number, the results are largely similar for the coldest 10%, 5%, 2%, 1%, or the single coldest day of the year.)
The figure below shows the results for every one-by-one degree latitude-longitude grid cell on the Earth’s land (a size approximately equivalent to 100km by 100km). Grid cells coloured red experienced a decrease in extreme cold days, while those coloured blue had more extreme cold days.
The vast majority of the planet has seen a strong decrease in extreme cold events, with the largest declines seen in high-latitude northern hemisphere regions (which have also experienced the fastest rate of warming overall).
The few regions that have seen an increase in extreme cold events tend to be those with the slowest average rates of warming, including India, South Africa and Antarctica.
In India, this has likely been influenced by rapid increases in air pollution – particularly cooling sulfate aerosols – over this period. Causes of more extreme cold events in Antarctica are less clear, though it is possible that they could be linked to the seasonal loss of ozone layer over the past 50 years.
Another way to assess changes in cold events is to look at the change in the number of days where any hour of the day – that is, the daily minimum temperature – is below freezing (0C, 32F). The map below shows the change in average annual freezing days between 1970 and 2024.
The map shows dramatic shifts in the number of freezing days in much of the high-latitude northern hemisphere, with nearly a month fewer freezing days over the Himalayas, eastern Europe and parts of Canada and the western US over the past 50 years.
(White areas on the graph – such as much of the tropics and subtropics – represent regions of the world where temperatures below freezing almost never occur and thus changes over time cannot be calculated.)
Fewer cold outbreaks in the US
A sizable portion of the academic research on cold outbreaks has been focused on the contiguous US, as it is a region prone to occasional extreme cold conditions caused by intrusions of Arctic air.
The map below shows there has been a warming trend in the coldest days of the year across virtually the entire US over the past 50 years.
This suggests that the effect of Arctic amplification on cold-air patterns is smaller than the strong winter warming trend.
Almost no regions of the US have seen a cooling trend in the 5% coldest days of the year – and higher latitude regions have tended to experience the fastest winter warming.
There has been a slight cooling trend in the coldest days of the year in northern Mexico and slower warming in California, Arizona, southern New Mexico and southern Texas.
Similarly, the figure below examines the change in days where minimum temperatures are below freezing in the US.
It shows that there are, on average, 13 fewer days below freezing each year compared to the 1970s. Or, to put it another way, there is half a month where daily minimum temperatures are no longer cold enough for icy and snowy conditions to occur.
Increasingly rare cold spells
The latest climate models overwhelmingly project that cold extremes will continue to diminish as greenhouse gas concentrations rise.
This means that, even if certain patterns occasionally transport freezing polar air southward, winters on the whole are likely to be milder than in the past.
However, the scientific understanding of precisely how Arctic warming might – or might not – influence mid-latitude weather is still evolving.
Researchers continue to refine models, incorporate better reanalysis data and examine how changes in atmospheric circulation dynamics might play out under different scenarios. Additional data – especially over multiple decades – will help clarify whether the Arctic’s role in mid-latitude cold extremes is significant or overstated.
For now, observations over the past 50 years generally show a world with fewer cold extremes – and projections point toward increasingly rare cold spells in the future.
The post Factcheck: Climate change is not making extreme cold more common appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: Climate change is not making extreme cold more common
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.
Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”
The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.
The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.
Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.
Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.
Green reconstruction of Gaza
Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.
While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.
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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.
But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.
With occupation, targets conditional
In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.
Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.
That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.
To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.
In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.
To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.
The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.
The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.
The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.
This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.
Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.
June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.
It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.
In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.
Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.
June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.
As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.
The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.
In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.
(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)
According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.
This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.
In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.
Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.
Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:
“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.
Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.
* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.
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The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.
Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.
This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.
Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.
In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.
French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.
The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.
Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.
Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.
This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:
“In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.
Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.
The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.
Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.
The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.
The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.
ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.
Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.
Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.
Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.
ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.
Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.
Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.
The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.
The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.
This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.
Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.
6. Declines in EU grains since 2025
Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.
Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.
Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.
Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.
The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts
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