Zeke Hausfather

San Francisco

"A tireless chronicler and commentator on all things climate" -NYTimes. Climate lead @stripe, writer @CarbonBrief, scientist @BerkeleyEarth, IPCC/NCA5 author.

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Articles

A worse-than-current-policy world?

2 weeks ago | theclimatebrink.com | Zeke Hausfather

The world has made real progress toward tacking climate change in recent years, with spending on clean energy technologies skyrocketing from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars globally over the past decade, and global CO2 emissions plateauing. This has contributed to a reassessment of likely climate outcomes this century, with the world now likely heading toward less than 3C warming by 2100 under current policies – compared to the 4C warming that seemed more plausible 15 years ago.
Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

1 month ago | theclimatebrink.com | Zeke Hausfather

Last September the Washington Post published an article about a new paper in Science by Emily Judd and colleagues. The WaPo article was detailed and nuanced, but led with the figure below, adapted from the paper:The internet, being less prone to detail and nuance, ran with the figure, with climate skeptics calling it their “new favorite graph” and reposting it everywhere, claiming that it shows the insignificance of recent human warming relative to the Earth’s long temperature history.
Factcheck: Climate change is not making extreme cold more common

1 month ago | carbonbrief.org | Zeke Hausfather

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.
Visualizing daily global temperatures

1 month ago | theclimatebrink.com | Zeke Hausfather

Good data visualizations can help make climate change more visceral and understandable. Back in 2016 Ed Hawkins published a “climate spiral” graph that ended up being pretty iconic – it was shown at the opening ceremony of the Olympics that year – and is probably the second most widely seen climate graph after Hawkins’ later climate stripes.
January sets an unexpected temperature record

2 months ago | theclimatebrink.com | Zeke Hausfather

Both 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that a sizable portion of 2024’s elevated temperatures were driven by a moderately strong El Niño event that peaked in November 2023.
Work Less

2 months ago | wecanfixit.substack.com | Kimberly Nicholas |Zeke Hausfather

Welcome to We Can Fix It, where we tackle the climate crisis with facts, feelings, and action. Written by me, climate scientist Kim Nicholas. Hi friends, I hope you had peaceful holidays. For me it was a tough end to a tough year. My husband Simon’s dad died unexpectedly two weeks before Christmas. I am grateful for the time we got to spend with family and friends, and now glad to be back home in Sweden. <3 On my mind lately: carbon removal done right, turning worry to compassion, and working less.
An assessment of current policy scenarios over the 21st century and the reduced plausibility of high-emissions pathways - Zeke Hausfather, 2025

Jan 13, 2025 | journals.sagepub.com | Zeke Hausfather

A convergence of current policy projectionsOver the past decade, the climate science community has taken important steps in reducing the envelope of uncertainty in future warming projections (Gillett, 2024; Lehner et al., 2023).
State of the Climate: 2024 sets a new record as the first year above 1.5C

Jan 10, 2025 | carbonbrief.org | Zeke Hausfather

STATE OF THE CLIMATE | January 10. 2025. 16:00 State of the Climate: 2024 sets a new record as the first year above 1.5C Last year was the hottest the Earth has experienced since the start of global temperature records in the mid-1800s – and likely for many thousands of years before. The year 2024 was the first in which average global temperatures at the surface of the planet exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in the majority of leading datasets.
How unusual is current post-El Niño warmth?

Nov 25, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Zeke Hausfather

As I noted a few months back, despite the end of El Niño conditions in May, global temperatures have remained worryingly elevated. This raises the question of whether this reflects unusual El Niño behavior, or a more persistent change in the underlying climate forcings or feedbacks. At the time I did a fairly basic analysis comparing the current 2023/2024 El Niño event to the two other recent strong El Niño events – those in 1997/1998 and 2015/2016.
How unusual is current post-El Niño warmth?

Nov 25, 2024 | open.substack.com | Zeke Hausfather

As I noted a few months back, despite the end of El Niño conditions in May, global temperatures have remained worryingly elevated. This raises the question of whether this reflects unusual El Niño behavior, or a more persistent change in the underlying climate forcings or feedbacks. At the time I did a fairly basic analysis comparing the current 2023/2024 El Niño event to the two other recent strong El Niño events – those in 1997/1998 and 2015/2016.