The Lab — Issue 26

The Compression

Core Sample

By Yuki Tanabe— March 31, 2026

In 1985, NASA discovered its own satellites had been recording the collapse of the ozone layer for years. The processing software had flagged the measurements as instrument error. The numbers fell outside the range the system recognized as physically possible. The instruments were correct.

CO₂ at 339 parts per million. Arctic ice: 6.85 million square kilometers. The seasonal oscillations still regular, each spring drawdown fitting inside the one before. The instruments kept recording.

The Compression

Core Sample

In 1985, NASA discovered its own satellites had been recording the collapse of the ozone layer for years. The processing software had flagged the measurements as instrument error. The numbers fell outside the range the system recognized as physically possible. The instruments were correct.

CO₂ at 339 parts per million. Arctic ice: 6.85 million square kilometers. The seasonal oscillations still regular, each spring drawdown fitting inside the one before. The instruments kept recording.

Yuki Tanabe

Japanese speculative fiction writer who transforms climate change into visceral bodily experience through precise, sensation-first prose. Makes readers feel futures in their own bodies while refusing to aestheticize catastrophe or manufacture hope.

The Voices

Showing People Where Things Used to Be

By Maya Jiménez— April 1, 2026

Feature image for article: Showing People Where Things Used to Be

A cherry grower in Washington's Yakima Valley watched his crop cook on the branch. In Phoenix, an ER nurse started treating second-degree burns from sidewalks. A lobsterman in Maine is pulling up fish that belong off the Carolina coast. A park ranger in Montana says her job description quietly changed. None of these people know each other.

What follows is fifteen of them talking. Farmers, lineworkers, bus drivers, fishing guides, ranchers, coaches, firefighters. No analysis, no expert interpretation. Working people in different states, different industries, reaching for language to describe what their hands and their routines already know.

The Voices

Showing People Where Things Used to Be

By Maya Jiménez— April 1, 2026

A cherry grower in Washington's Yakima Valley watched his crop cook on the branch. In Phoenix, an ER nurse started treating second-degree burns from sidewalks. A lobsterman in Maine is pulling up fish that belong off the Carolina coast. A park ranger in Montana says her job description quietly changed. None of these people know each other.

What follows is fifteen of them talking. Farmers, lineworkers, bus drivers, fishing guides, ranchers, coaches, firefighters. No analysis, no expert interpretation. Working people in different states, different industries, reaching for language to describe what their hands and their routines already know.

The Normal

Norm Is Fine, Thanks for Asking

The Normal

Norm Is Fine, Thanks for Asking

The Hinge

2013

CO2 crossed 400 parts per million for the first time in human history. Edward Snowden fled the country. Breaking Bad ended. The IPCC published its largest-ever climate assessment, and the word on everyone's lips was "pause." Warming appeared to have stalled. Reuters ran headlines about scientists struggling to explain the slowdown.

The ocean was swallowing heat the surface wasn't showing. The planet was warming at 0.2°C per decade. On schedule. On time.

Nobody called it the last year on schedule because nobody knew there was a schedule to lose.

The Hinge

2013

CO2 crossed 400 parts per million for the first time in human history. Edward Snowden fled the country. Breaking Bad ended. The IPCC published its largest-ever climate assessment, and the word on everyone's lips was "pause." Warming appeared to have stalled. Reuters ran headlines about scientists struggling to explain the slowdown.

The ocean was swallowing heat the surface wasn't showing. The planet was warming at 0.2°C per decade. On schedule. On time.

Nobody called it the last year on schedule because nobody knew there was a schedule to lose.

The rate: Warming held near 0.2°C per decade from 1970 through roughly 2015. It has since nearly doubled to 0.35°C per decade.

The confirmation: Foster and Rahmstorf (2026) pin the acceleration at greater than 98% statistical confidence, the shift first visible around 2013–2014.

The threshold: At the current rate, Earth permanently exceeds 1.5°C before 2030. Years ahead of projections built on the old pace.

The air: 397 ppm then. 424 ppm now. Twenty-seven parts per million in thirteen years.

The Ratios

Parts per million. Degrees per decade. Percentages per annum. Climate moves in units the body has no receptor for. They accumulate on the page. They do not accumulate in the gut.

Below are five cards. Each places a measured rate of climate change next to something else that moves through time: tectonic plates, a healing femur, a road crew, the fastest sprinter who ever lived, a growing census. Two rates side by side. One ratio. Sources.

A reef next to a femur will look like a category error. A probability distribution next to a stopwatch will look like another. They are. The velocities are not.

The Ratios

Parts per million. Degrees per decade. Percentages per annum. Climate moves in units the body has no receptor for. They accumulate on the page. They do not accumulate in the gut.

Below are five cards. Each places a measured rate of climate change next to something else that moves through time: tectonic plates, a healing femur, a road crew, the fastest sprinter who ever lived, a growing census. Two rates side by side. One ratio. Sources.

A reef next to a femur will look like a category error. A probability distribution next to a stopwatch will look like another. They are. The velocities are not.

Reef Bone

A Reef Heals Thirty Times Slower Than Bone

Reef recovery from mass bleaching: 10–15 years (NOAA). Bleaching now returns every 6, down from every 25–30 (Hughes et al., Science). A broken femur heals in 3–6 months (AAOS). The reef mends 20–30× slower than human bone and is re-broken before it's half-healed.

Vanishing Area

Eleven Million Years to Cross One Year's Loss

Arctic summer sea ice: losing ~80,000 km² per year, 12.2% per decade (NASA/NOAA). Continental drift: ~2.5 cm per year (USGS). At tectonic speed, a plate would need ~11 million years to cross the area the Arctic loses in twelve months.

Record Heat

Extreme Heat Outbuilt the National Road Network Fivefold

U.S. daily high-temperature records: 77% more frequent than in the 1970s (AP/NOAA). U.S. public road mileage over the same half-century: up ~14%, from 3.7 million to 4.2 million miles (FHWA). Extreme heat outpaced road construction 5.5 to 1.

Probability Shift

Seven Hundred Seventy Times Faster Than Bolt Got

The 100m world record improved 3.7% in 41 years, from 9.95s to 9.58s (World Athletics). Factor of improvement: 1.04×. The March 2026 Southwest heat event became ~800× more likely due to climate change (WWA). The atmosphere shifted probability 770× faster than the fastest human got faster.

Losing Coverage

Protection Vanished Twelve Times Faster Than People Arrived

U.S. population grows ~0.5% per year (Census Bureau). The share of uninsured owner-occupied homes jumped 6%+ in a single year, 2023 to 2024 (LendingTree). Ratio: 12×. Protection disappeared twelve times faster than the population it was written for grew.