El Nino to End Persistent Drought?

Robert W. Endlich
MY FIRST CLIMATE FORECAST

My forecasting career as a Weather Officer in the Air Force and as a civilian Meteorologist for the Army mostly consisted of operational forecasts, usually up to 24-hour forecasts. However, once before, in the months, and later the weeks, prior to the 1980 NATO REFORGER Field Training Exercise, CERTAIN RAMPART, I ventured into forecasting a season ahead. As that exercise was in the planning stages, in Cold War Germany, we in the US VII

Image by Gerson Rodriguez from Pixabay

Corps were to conduct a field maneuver with troops in the field, putting into practice REFORGER’s name, “REturn of FORces to GERmany,” the promise the US had made to Germany and NATO in the 1970s.

My duty station was in the southern suburbs of Stuttgart, Germany, and my assignment was Staff Weather Officer to VII (US) Corps, at the time, the largest corps in the US Army. In southern Germany, in the winter and spring of 1980, we had experienced the coldest and wettest cold season in the previous 100 years. The ground for our REFORGER 1980 maneuver area was in Bavaria, some 75 miles east of Stuttgart, on both sides of the Danube River. At that point the soil was wet and impossible to use for ground maneuver of the heavy vehicles used by the Army, mostly M-60 tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers. Spring planting was delayed. As VII Continue reading “El Nino to End Persistent Drought?”

The EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, Rescinds the Obama-Era Endangerment Finding

 At Last! Hoorah!

Robert W. Endlich

INTRODUCTION

On 15 December 2009, during the Obama Administration, the EPA issued, in Volume 4 of the Federal Register, on page 66518, a rule, based on Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, stating that human greenhouse gas emissions of CO2 caused environmental and human endangerment.

Jetliner landing at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field in late afternoon. On 8 April 2026 EPA Administrator Lee Zelden described his Agency’s 2026 repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding as reversing “decades of unthinking adherence to liberal politicians and environmental groups about the dangers of climate change.”

In the years since, various individuals and organizations have published posts and articles attempting to persuade authorities to undo this rule. Here are some of their attempts:

The Heartland Institute has these posts on this topic.

A group of authors with Dr. James P. Wallace III as lead author posted this article “On the Existence of a ‘Tropical Hot Spot and The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding.’” They also published on uncorrupted Temperature Records containing natural cycles, and “A Critical Look at Surface Temperature Records.”

In Testimony before the House of Representatives in 2017, Dr John Christy of the University of Alabama Huntsville showed that despite the EPA’s 2009 claims of veracity of computer models, he showed that computer models of Continue reading “The EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, Rescinds the Obama-Era Endangerment Finding”

A Likely Weather Factor in United Flight 169 Newark Landing Accident

Robert W. Endlich
INTRODUCTION

On 3 May 2026, United Flight 169, a Boeing 767-400 ER (Extended Range) flew its scheduled transatlantic flight from Venice, Italy’s, Marco Polo International Airport (ICAO code LIPZ) to Newark Liberty International Airport (ICAO code KEWR) and, on landing approach, struck a highway light stanchion on the New Jersey Turnpike (part of I-95) during its final approach.

Image by Pixabay

There are claims Flight 169 also directly struck a semi-trailer operated by Bakers Express, driving on exit 14C of the Turnpike at the time, and was directly under the final approach path of Flight 169. In any event, damage to the aircraft was not discovered until half an hour after landing, when it was parked at the passenger gate at Newark Liberty Airport.

After the damage to the aircraft was discovered, pictures were taken, videos were produced, and this incident was in the national and international news Continue reading “A Likely Weather Factor in United Flight 169 Newark Landing Accident”

Abiotic Oil?

Robert W. Endlich
INTRODUCTION

Abiotic Oil? Deposits of oil WITHOUT the changes in decayed biologic materials such as plants, algae and plankton, buried in sedimentary basins, and then compressed, heated, and transformed into hydrocarbon deposits to be used by man, eons later. Is that possible? We explore this topic. But it is not without controversy!

Courtesy of Pixabay

In recent decades, published results indicate that abiotic, sometimes called “abiogenic,” oil might be the origin for some of the hydrocarbon deposits of fuels. What follows is an introduction to this very possibility, and as we will soon see, probability, based on observations made on the various continents and published by Nature, The American Geophysical Union, Harvard, and Researchgate.net.

My undergraduate work was as a Geology Major at Rutgers, graduating in 1962; in those years draft into military service was obligatory for young men, and the Air Force soon sent me to Texas A&M for a year to qualify as a Weather Officer, and so I went on to a career in another Earth Science, Meteorology. But I still have a fondness for geological topics.

The earliest mention of an abiotic source for hydrocarbon fuels I found in my research for this post was a small 17 Nov 1991 News Note by Peter Continue reading “Abiotic Oil?”

Some Comments on Drought in the Southwest U.S.

As Revealed through Pueblo Indian Architecture, History, and Tree Ring Lab Time Series.

Robert W Endlich
INTRODUCTION
Courtesy of Pixabay

During the presentation at the 21 March 2026 CASF meeting, Bill Gutman highlighted brief segments from the Joe Rogan Experience video which featured comments by Dr. Will Happer, emeritus Professor of Physics from Princeton, and Dr. Richard Lindzen emeritus Professor of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ihn2aHDz9dyZU0T3Kylk3

The presentation featured several minute-long video segments, following which Bill Gutman paused the video, and asked topical questions to evoke discussion of the content by meeting attendees.

This post pertains to a couple of these segments, specifically the generally Continue reading “Some Comments on Drought in the Southwest U.S.”