Climate Physical Risk

A study in Science led by Julia Cole of the University of Michigan used living and fossil corals from Wolf and Darwin islands in the Galápagos, some up to 4,500 years old, to reconstruct Pacific sea temperatures month by month. El Niño events of the past 40 years were stronger on average than at any time in the past millennium, an intensification beyond what nearly all climate models produce from natural causes alone. Cole said the strongest recent events have gone beyond El Niño's natural range, pointing to human-caused warming. The study was published in late August; Yale Climate Connections revisited it this week as a strong El Niño builds.

A modeling study in Nature Climate Change suggests the East Antarctic Ice Sheet may be more resilient to extreme long-term warming than previously estimated. Increased snowfall, greater cloud cover and shifts in atmospheric circulation could partly offset ice loss even at very high carbon dioxide concentrations, according to the Phys.org description of the paper. Its sea-level figures and scenarios could not be read.

Why it matters: East Antarctica holds most of the world's land ice, so how fast it loses mass sets the upper end of long-run sea-level projections.

California's State Water Resources Control Board voted 4–1 late Thursday to adopt the first overhaul of the Bay-Delta Plan since 1995. Water agencies can either join the voluntary Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program, backed by $2.9 billion and requiring them to fund flows and habitat work, or fall under a regulatory backup of year-round minimum unimpaired flows. The Bureau of Reclamation has warned it may withdraw and stop funding over what it calls regulatory overreach, putting an expected $740 million federal share at risk; board staff said the plan works without it and would bind Reclamation through the backup. State Water Contractors called the plan micromanagement, while tribes and environmental groups called it too weak, according to CalMatters and Courthouse News.

Why it matters: The rules set how much water California's two largest delivery systems can take from the Delta in drought years, and the federal dispute puts their enforcement in doubt.

A Colorado water court this month approved the $1.1 billion Platte Valley Water Partnership, a 125-mile pipeline, new plains reservoir and diversions linking the Lower South Platte near Sterling to Parker and Castle Rock. Parker pays 52% of the cost, the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District 27% and Castle Rock 20%, and the ruling opens the way to permitting and construction, The Colorado Sun reports. The project is pitched as an alternative to buy-and-dry: its rules bar delivering water taken off farm fields, in a state that has lost more than 30% of its irrigated farmland in three decades.

Edison International chief executive Pedro Pizarro said on Thursday's earnings call that pushing California wildfire liability reform into 2027 would carry significant and costly consequences, after the legislature declined in September to take up Gov. Newsom's liability proposal and the company's stock fell 23%. Chief financial officer Aaron Moss said elevated credit spreads could add $300 million in customer costs over the life of the bonds Southern California Edison expects to issue in 2027 alone. SCE has recorded $1.8 billion of Eaton fire settlement losses, to be recovered largely from customer-funded self-insurance and the state Wildfire Fund, and faces about 2,000 suits from 38,000 plaintiffs, Utility Dive reports. Absent reform, the utility said it would put safety and reliability spending ahead of load growth in its $38–41 billion five-year plan.

SCOR's property and casualty chief Jean-Paul Conoscente said on the reinsurer's third-quarter call that the first European programs quoted for the January 1, 2027 renewal show catastrophe price cuts in the high single digits to low double digits, with many submissions not yet sent. He expects continued pressure on catastrophe pricing after a year of light losses, while group chief Thierry Léger said SCOR will favor margin over volume. Reinsurance News notes the range is a slight slowdown from the 15% fall in Marsh's European property-catastrophe index at the last January renewal.