# We Weren't Expecting This: What Does a Super El Niño Mean For the Climate? with Tad Patzek

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens-6364729/we-weren-t-expecting-this-what-does-a-super-el-ni-o-mean-for-the-climate-with-tad-patzek
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens-6364729/we-weren-t-expecting-this-what-does-a-super-el-ni-o-mean-for-the-climate-with-tad-patzek.md
Podcast: [The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens-6364729)
Published: 2026-06-24T11:30:00+00:00
Episode link: https://thegreatsimplification.libsyn.com/we-werent-expecting-this-what-does-a-super-el-nio-mean-for-the-climate-with-tad-patzek
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thegreatsimplification/TGS225_TadPatzek.mp3?dest-id=3235040
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Duration seconds: 5129

## Resource

This year's projected Super El Niño forming in the Pacific could become one of the strongest climate oscillations in over a century. As regions prepare for the effects, and continue to adapt to extreme heat waves, intensifying storms, accelerating ice loss, and increasingly erratic rainfall, scientists and citizens alike are questioning what our new normal will look like under accelerated global heating. From climate basics to unfolding atmospheric research, what do we know about the trajectory our climate is currently on, and what gaps of knowledge still need to be filled? In this episode, Nate is joined by earth scientist and thermodynamicist Tad Patzek for an exploration of the mechanics and mathematics of global heating itself. Tad explains why CO₂ has such an outsized effect in contrast to its small concentration, how water vapor amplifies the greenhouse effect, and why climate models sometimes get things wrong. His new research, currently under peer review at Geophysical Research Letters, identifies a declining Earth albedo as an additional accelerant of warming over the past 26 years. Combined with accelerating ocean heat absorption, melting ice sheets, and the dynamics of an approaching Super El Niño, Tad argues the warming curve itself may be bending upward. Is the projected Super El Niño a signal of more extreme climatic swings to come? What sort of research is being done to explore and predict climate feedback dynamics that are only partly understood? And if the warming curve is indeed bending upward, what does it mean to plan, prepare, or adapt when the system itself may be moving faster than our models anticipated? (Conversation recorded on June 18th, 2026) About Tad Patzek: Tad Patzek is Professor Emeritus of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering at the Eart…

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