82Eridani wrote:

Glad to hear his home is safe for now, and hope it remains so. Climate change has impacted so much of the world. My fear is we've tipped too far over the edge of global warming, so extreme winds, unaccustomed fluctuations in temperatures and too much rainfall in too little time is the new norm.

Oh, we are there all right. I would be quite surprised if climate change and weather catastrophes don’t accelerate. But I don’t believe we’ve crossed some sort of tipping point. I think it’s remediable. It just that humans are ill equipped to make the changes necessary, and we will dabble at the edges while we dither and debate until it’s much much worse.

Felicitous Sk8er wrote:

That is astounding about your friend, Star.  I happened to fly over the decimated Los Angeles area several months later.  The scope was staggering.  

So many of us have been closely touched by raging wildfires.  Remember Spokane's 2025 Worldcon?  Raging  wildfires north of the city turned area skies an unarthly sick color, with a correspondingly ghastly air quality.      

My sister has a friend in Lahaina, Hawaii who  lost everything in the 2023 apocalypse there.  She and her family counted themselves beyond fortunate to escape by the nick of their teeth.  Her friend is a vet.  We were sickened by the thought that her many pets had perished.  I never learned the details but by some miracle they were able to save them all. 

My sister lives on a huge lake in British Columbia, Canada -- but backed by countless miles of dense forest.  Approx 6 years ago they had to flee their home because of raging wildfires.  As my sister and her husband jumped in their boat to get away, she looked back, certain that was the last time they would ever see their house.  Thankfully, winds shifted at the last minute, so all homes on that shore were saved but the burn scars 1.5 miles away remain obvious.    
Our rural home is in a forested area near a national forest.  Several years ago we too were threatened, living under Level 1 evacuation orders ("get ready") and a mile away from the Level 2 perimeter ("get set") for a full 2 weeks. (Level 3 is "go" -- mandatory evacuation).  Cinders fell from the sickly yellow sky like snow.  We were the last remaining family in our neighborhood but thanks to dedicated fire crews, got through it and were able to stay. 

Looking back at this thread, and well-remembering the devastating fires in AUS and so many other places, this is horrifyingly starting to feel like the norm.  I now wonder if there are any of us who haven't been directly impacted?    

Truly awful. This planet could be a Garden with proper stewardship...
 

Felicitous Sk8er wrote:

You are so correct about a Garden, Star.  

One encouraging bit of news I've encountered is that the ozone hole is significantly smaller this year compared to previous ones -- a direct result of interventions to remediate human damage.  Glacier thinning and disappearance -- including what is going on in Antarctica -- is of grave concern to me however. 

Anecdotally, Mt. Rainier in WA State is shrinking -- the direct result of its thinning glaciers thinning.  The storied North Face of the Eiger is increasingly becoming too dangerous to climb.  Because its loose rocks are often no longer frozen in place, the risk is extreme.       

Happy to accept the ozone hole success. We can certainly use models of corrective human action on the environment!

The Antarctic situation looks grave and worrisome.
 

Surtac wrote:

starexplorer wrote:

The Antarctic situation looks grave and worrisome.
 

Yes, it is.  And I've been wondering for some time how much of a contributing effect it is having on our regional weather variability over the last few years.  I've been living here in Canberra since 1987 and the local summers have just been getting more and more inconsistent and unpredictable.
 

I wonder whether these changes have something to do with Antarctica specifically, or are related to climate change more generally.

Felicitous Sk8er wrote:

Details & citation: 
Ozone hole, 24 Nov 2025, NOAA
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-nasa-2025-ozone-hole-is-5th-smallest-since-1992"Scientists with NOAA and NASA have ranked this year’s ozone hole over the Antarctic as the fifth smallest since 1992 — the year that the Montreal Protocol, a landmark international agreement to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals began to take effect.During the height of this year’s ozone depletion season from September 7 through October 13, the average extent of the 2025 ozone hole was about 7.23 million square miles (18.71 million square kilometers). The ozone hole is already breaking up nearly three weeks earlier than average over the past decade.“As predicted, we’re seeing ozone holes trending smaller in area than they were in the early 2000s,” said Paul Newman, a senior scientist at the University of Maryland system and longtime leader of NASA’s ozone research team. “They’re forming later in the season and breaking up earlier.” 
 

A bit of good news is most welcome!