Out-of-Phase.mp3

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A SCIENCE NOTE

From the album “Unfazed“

Uncorked-Best-Of.mp3

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A SCIENCE NOTE: Sudden Sea Level Pulses (How “Cork Release” Events Could Rapidly Reshape Coastlines)

One of the most powerful feedbacks in the polar regions is the albedo effect. As bright, reflective ice melts, it reveals darker land or ocean surfaces that absorb far more solar energy. This speeds up further melting. While melting sea ice mainly changes heat balance without directly raising sea levels, the melting of land-based ice–especially from Greenland and Antarctica–not only raises global seas but also changes ocean salinity and temperature, further destabilizing circulation systems like the AMOC.

These ice sheets hold vast “corks” of land ice restraining enormous reservoirs of meltwater. When these corks break, sudden sea level rise pulses–sometimes 1-3 feet per year for multiple consecutive years–could occur. The impacts on coastlines, global weather, and ocean currents would be both severe and unpredictable.

Recent research has identified a startling example of this process. In the paper Outburst of a subglacial flood from the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet (2025), scientists documented a 90-million-cubic-meter flood that forced its way upward through the ice sheet, bursting out at the surface. This was caused by the rapid drainage of a subglacial lake in a region where the bed was thought to be frozen solid–an event that current ice sheet models do not account for.

The flood’s upward path fractured the ice sheet, disrupting the downstream marine-terminating glacier and altering its flow. This bi-directional coupling between surface and basal hydrology highlights just how complex–and poorly understood–ice sheet dynamics truly are.

Over the last three decades, Greenland has lost roughly 169 billion tons of ice per year on average, contributing about 14 mm to global sea level rise. Roughly half of this loss comes from surface melting and runoff, which are projected to increase sharply as Arctic warming intensifies.

A massive upstream basin of rainwater and snowmelt, dammed by Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier, began releasing in August of 2025, prompting officials to urge residents in parts of Juneau to evacuate ahead of a potentially dangerous surge of floodwater.

A glacial outburst flood occurs when meltwater or rainwater accumulates behind a natural ice dam, creating a substantial reservoir of water under pressure. In the case of the Mendenhall Glacier, snowmelt and rainfall from the upstream basin — ironically named Suicide Basin — accumulate behind the glacier, which acts as a solid barrier, trapping the water in depressions known as proglacial lakes or subglacial reservoirs. As the water volume increases, hydrostatic pressure builds against the ice dam. Ice behaves like a viscoelastic material–it can deform slowly under pressure but can fracture if stress exceeds its strength. The weight of the water eventually exceeds the ice’s ability to hold it, particularly if crevasses or melt channels weaken the glacier structure. Once the pressure exceeds the strength of the ice or underlying bedrock, cracks propagate rapidly, and water can exploit subglacial channels, forcing its way beneath or through the ice, a process known as hydraulic fracturing. When the dam fails, the water stored in the basin rushes downstream in a high-energy flood, converting potential energy into kinetic energy, generating destructive flow speeds and forces that can erode soil, uproot trees, damage infrastructure, and rapidly raise river levels. Warming temperatures increase surface melt and rainfall, filling these basins faster, while ice thinning and increased meltwater lubricate the glacier bed, reducing friction and making outbursts more likely. In essence, a glacial outburst results from the buildup of pressure from trapped water, ice weakening or cracking, and the sudden release of gravitational energy, producing a high-speed, destructive flood downstream.

If hydrofracture events like this outburst become more frequent, the world could face abrupt, multi-foot-per-year sea level jumps–not the gradual rise most models currently project. This would leave little time for adaptation in coastal cities and could unleash profound economic, humanitarian, and ecological consequences.

Current ice sheet models typically treat meltwater movement as predictable and gradual. The Greenland event shows that under certain conditions, trapped subglacial water can build enough pressure to fracture ice and erupt at the surface–what could be called a “cork release” event. These sudden failures are not fully understood, but they could represent one of the most dangerous tipping points in the cryosphere.

Understanding and integrating these processes into predictive models is urgent. The more we learn, the more it becomes clear that the climate system is capable of abrupt, nonlinear shifts–far faster than human infrastructure, economies, or governance can adapt.

In particular, Sidd said: “Yes, I saw that. Under-ice hydrology is hard to observe, but there have been efforts with maps made of Greenland and Antarctica — probably incomplete. I still think Greenland will melt largely in place; Antarctica is the big one.

* Our climate model — which incorporates complex social-ecological feedback loops within a dynamic, non-linear system — projects that global temperatures could rise by up to 9°C (16.2°F). This far exceeds earlier estimates of a 4°C rise over the next thousand years, signaling a dramatic acceleration of warming.

The Climate Crisis: Violent Rain | Deadly Humid Heat | Health Collapse | Extreme Weather Events | Insurance | Trees and Deforestation | Rising Sea Level | Food and Water | Updates

From the album “Discombobulated“

Perma-Unfrosted-Best-Of.mp3

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A SCIENCE NOTE — Permafrost: From Slow Thaw to Year-Round Fire

This raises new scientific uncertainties:

What is clear is that the pace of release is orders of magnitude faster than assumed, and the feedbacks are already active, not hypothetical.

The question is not whether Earth will warm — it is how fast, how far, and how violently feedbacks will accelerate the process. A 9°C rise this century may or may not occur, but even “consensus” outcomes (~3°C) would be catastrophic.

The decisive factor is human action: whether we allow runaway feedbacks to trigger an irreversible “Hothouse Earth,” or whether we cut emissions, restore ecosystems, and adapt quickly enough to keep habitable zones intact.

We are not just modeling the future — we are choosing it.

* Our probabilistic, ensemble-based climate model — which incorporates complex socio-economic and ecological feedback loops within a dynamic, nonlinear system — projects that global temperatures are becoming unsustainable this century. This far exceeds earlier estimates of a 4°C rise over the next thousand years, highlighting a dramatic acceleration in global warming. We are now entering a phase of compound, cascading collapse, where climate, ecological, and societal systems destabilize through interlinked, self-reinforcing feedback loops.

We examine how human activities — such as deforestation, fossil fuel combustion, mass consumption, industrial agriculture, and land development — interact with ecological processes like thermal energy redistribution, carbon cycling, hydrological flow, biodiversity loss, and the spread of disease vectors. These interactions do not follow linear cause-and-effect patterns. Instead, they form complex, self-reinforcing feedback loops that can trigger rapid, system-wide transformations — often abruptly and without warning. Grasping these dynamics is crucial for accurately assessing global risks and developing effective strategies for long-term survival.

From the album “Sting“

Runaway-Feedbacks.mp3

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A SCIENCE MOTE: Runaway Climate Feedbacks and Systemic Collapse

The Arctic is warming far faster than the global average — ~2-3°C already, about 3-4 times faster than the planet as a whole. Projections vary:

Consequences include seasonal ice-free summers by mid-century, permafrost fires releasing CO2 and methane, and destabilization of AMOC, accelerating sea-level rise and global weather extremes.

If multiple tipping points reinforce each other, the climate may enter a self-perpetuating heating cycle beyond human control. The main candidates include:

Temperature outcomes:

As global mean temperature exceeds 1.5 °C and multiple climate tipping points activate, the critical question is not simply how much warmer the planet becomes, but how quickly feedbacks amplify that warming.

Scientific consensus: Current models suggest that carbon-cycle feedbacks — permafrost thaw, weakening ocean and land sinks, methane release from wetlands, and fire-driven emissions — could add ~0.2-1.0 °C of warming by 2100 on top of direct human emissions. This range reflects assumptions that:

Under a high-emissions trajectory, with multiple tipping elements engaged, the upper end of this estimate (or beyond) becomes more plausible.

My concern: These consensus estimates are already lagging reality. Observations suggest that at least nine major tipping points are not only triggered but are now reinforcing each other. Instead of unfolding over centuries or millennia, the pace is measured in years or decades. Models have struggled to keep up with this rapid nonlinearity.

Regardless of the rise in global mean temperature, cascading feedbacks are already reshaping weather extremes.

In just ten days during July 2025, the U.S. experienced:

These events illustrate how tipping feedbacks manifest in human terms — not only as gradual warming, but as sudden escalations in climate volatility and infrastructure failure.

The permafrost is one of the starkest examples of the gap between theory and reality:

This raises new scientific uncertainties:

What is clear is that the pace of release is orders of magnitude faster than assumed, and the feedbacks are already active, not hypothetical.

The question is not whether Earth will warm — it is how fast, how far, and how violently feedbacks will accelerate the process. A 9°C rise this century may or may not occur, but even “consensus” outcomes (~3°C) would be catastrophic.

The decisive factor is human action: whether we allow runaway feedbacks to trigger an irreversible “Hothouse Earth,” or whether we cut emissions, restore ecosystems, and adapt quickly enough to keep habitable zones intact.

We are not just modeling the future — we are choosing it.

* Our probabilistic, ensemble-based climate model — which incorporates complex socio-economic and ecological feedback loops within a dynamic, nonlinear system — projects that global temperatures are becoming unsustainable this century. This far exceeds earlier estimates of a 4°C rise over the next thousand years, highlighting a dramatic acceleration in global warming. We are now entering a phase of compound, cascading collapse, where climate, ecological, and societal systems destabilize through interlinked, self-reinforcing feedback loops.

We examine how human activities — such as deforestation, fossil fuel combustion, mass consumption, industrial agriculture, and land development — interact with ecological processes like thermal energy redistribution, carbon cycling, hydrological flow, biodiversity loss, and the spread of disease vectors. These interactions do not follow linear cause-and-effect patterns. Instead, they form complex, self-reinforcing feedback loops that can trigger rapid, system-wide transformations — often abruptly and without warning. Grasping these dynamics is crucial for accurately assessing global risks and developing effective strategies for long-term survival.

From the album “Sting“

Hectare-Best-Of.mp3

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A SCIENCE NOTE

The impacts are staggering: Europe has already endured more wildfire destruction in 2025 than in any year since records began. A hectare (ha) equals 2.47 acres, and by late August more than 1 million hectares had been scorched — an area larger than the entire country of Cyprus. According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), this marks the highest total since tracking began in 2006. Spain and Portugal have been hit hardest, with the Iberian Peninsula accounting for over two-thirds of the burned area.

These wildfires are not isolated disasters — they are part of a web of tipping points and feedback loops that extend far beyond southern Europe. Brown carbon deposition, loss of albedo from ice and snow melt, degradation of boreal forests, and thawing permafrost — some of which is now burning year-round — all feed into northern climate systems and directly affect the AMOC.

These regional extremes are connected symptoms of a planetary system in breakdown. The AMOC–jet stream feedback loop is destabilizing so quickly that the call to “wait for more data” no longer applies; the evidence is already unfolding before us. And this is only one piece of a much larger picture: at least nine major tipping points are now observable, interacting with one another in a cascading domino effect. Rather than acting independently, they are reinforcing each other and driving acceleration at an exponential pace.

Our climate model, integrating complex social-ecological factors, shows that global temperatures could rise by up to 9°C within this century — far beyond previous predictions of a 4°C rise over the next thousand years. This kind of warming could bring us dangerously close to the “wet-bulb” threshold, where heat and humidity exceed the human body’s ability to cool itself, leading to fatal consequences.

From the album “Sting“

Fluttering.mp3

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A SCIENCE NOTE

Chaos theory studies how small changes in initial conditions can lead to wildly different outcomes in complex systems. This is often called sensitive dependence on initial conditions — or famously, the butterfly effect — the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in China could ultimately contribute to a hurricane forming in the Atlantic.

In chaotic systems:

Behavior looks random, but is deterministic underneath.

Predictability breaks down over time.

Feedback loops accelerate instability.

Thresholds or tipping points matter more than averages.

Our climate model — which incorporates complex socio-economic and ecological feedback loops within a dynamic, nonlinear system — projects that global temperatures could rise by up to 9°C (16.2°F) within this century. This far exceeds earlier estimates of a 4°C rise over the next thousand years, highlighting a dramatic acceleration in global warming. We are now entering a phase of compound, cascading collapse, where climate, ecological, and societal systems destabilize through interlinked, self-reinforcing feedback loops.

From the album “Razz“

Singularity-Best-Of.mp3

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A SCIENCE NOTE

From the album “Aardvark“

Energization-Best-Of.mp3

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The song Energization weaves core physics concepts into musical imagery about movement, flight, and vitality.

In Verse 1, the line “I need friction (For wheels to move me)” reflects the fundamental role of friction in mechanics. Friction is the resistive force that allows wheels to grip the ground—without it, a wheel would simply spin in place. Cars, bicycles, and even walking all rely on friction to translate force into forward motion. The call for “wind under my wings” in the Chorus invokes aerodynamics: lift is generated when moving air creates pressure differences across a wing’s surface, allowing flight. Similarly, “Fill our sail” references wind energy harnessed through momentum transfer, which propels sailing vessels.

Verse 2 brings in “Surface tension (We’ll walk on water).” Surface tension arises from cohesive forces between water molecules, which are held together by hydrogen bonding. At the surface, water molecules are pulled inward, forming a kind of elastic film. This is why water beads up into droplets, insects like water striders can walk across ponds, and why tiny objects can float despite being denser than water.

The theme of energization ties all of this together: energy transfer is what makes systems move, fly, float, or resonate. Friction converts chemical energy into motion, wind transfers kinetic energy into lift or thrust, and surface tension redistributes molecular energy into stability at interfaces.

Finally, the repeated line “Up, up and away (A harmonious way)” suggests the unifying principle of physics: diverse forces and energies can interact harmoniously, creating balance and motion across scales—from the wheels on the ground, to the wind in the sails, to the molecules at the surface of water.

From the album “Aardvark“

Penguin-Best-Of.mp3

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ABOUT THE SONG: Antarctica and the Cascading Impacts of Climate Change

Today’s new release, Penguin, blends my favorite electric guitar through a Boss distortion pedal with a touch of digital delay for a rich stereo texture. Three keyboards, MIDI-chained and controlled with a sustain pedal, allowed me to layer sounds and play everything simultaneously, creating the song’s immersive atmosphere.

The inspiration came from my latest paper, Antarctica, Inevitable Sea-Level Rise, and the Cascading Impacts of Climate Change. Writing about extinction is the hardest part of my work. When I reach the sections where humanity’s actions are driving other species to the brink, I try to hold back tears. The emperor penguin—majestic, iconic, and entirely dependent on sea ice—is likely to go extinct as their habitat vanishes.

In my research, I try to keep the language clinical: “Wildlife Collapse: Emperor penguins and other species face extinction as their habitats vanish.” But in music, I let myself feel it. Penguin is my therapy, a way to pour my soul into sound, hoping that it stirs even one listener to action. Please—before it’s too late—stop climate change now.

The penguin most at risk of extinction from Antarctic ice melt is the emperor penguin.

They depend almost entirely on stable sea ice for breeding, feeding, and molting. As Antarctic sea ice extent has reached record lows in recent years, entire emperor penguin colonies have suffered breeding failures, with chicks drowning or freezing when the ice breaks up too early. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the emperor penguin as a threatened species in 2022 under the Endangered Species Act, citing climate change as the primary threat.

Other penguins, like the Adélie penguin, are also vulnerable, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula where warming has already reduced their populations. But the emperor penguin is considered the species most at risk of outright extinction if ice loss continues.

Recent research published in Nature confirms that Antarctica is already undergoing abrupt and potentially irreversible changes:

Regime Shift: The continent is moving into a new climate state, characterized by drastically reduced sea ice.

Accelerated Melting: Glacial outflow from Thwaites and others has doubled since the 1990s.

Tipping Point: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet may soon pass the point of no return for unstoppable collapse.

Ocean Circulation Slowdown: The Antarctic Overturning Circulation–which regulates heat transport and CO2 absorption–is weakening, undermining a key planetary stabilizer.

Wildlife Collapse: Emperor penguins and other species face extinction as their habitats vanish.

Amplified Warming: With less ice, the Antarctic reflects less sunlight, accelerating global warming.

Rapid Sea-Level Rise: Even temporary pulses of 20-40 feet this century will devastate coasts. The long-term inevitability is hundreds of feet.

Ecosystem Disruption: Warming and acidifying Southern Ocean waters threaten krill, penguins, whales, and entire food webs.

At the heart of all this is human-caused climate change. Fossil fuel emissions continue to trap heat, warming both atmosphere and ocean. Unlike the Arctic, the Antarctic is responding with alarming speed, its feedback loops less understood and far harder to predict.

The Earth has crossed tipping points that make extreme sea-level rise both inevitable and irreversible within our lifetimes. The exact timing and scale will vary by location due to gravity, isostatic rebound, and thermal expansion. But the direction is clear:

Coastal communities must plan for retreat.

Governments must end fossil fuel dependency immediately.

Planners must recognize that rebuilding low-lying infrastructure is wasted effort.

The world is entering a new geological epoch shaped by rising seas. The only question left is whether we plan for it–or drown in denial.

From the album “Aardvark“

Old-as-Dirt.mp3

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A SCIENCE NOTE

From the album “Aardvark“