The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Main Topic: Nobel Laureate Invents Machine That Harvests Water from Dry Air
Dear Diary. About nine out of ten of my posts highlight bad climate news. Today will be that one in ten post that joyously has some great news concerning climate change adaptation. As our world warm due to our climate pollution there will be more severe droughts. These will cause severe crises concerning drinking water, especially for the poor in already arid countries.
Evidently a revolutionary new machine has been invented that draws moisture out of the air for drinking water purposes. This will be a game changer if the thing is not too expensive to build and deploy.
Here are more details from the Guardian:
‘Reimagining matter’: Nobel laureate invents machine that harvests water from dry air
Omar Yaghi’s invention uses ambient thermal energy and can generate up to 1,000 litres of clean water every day
Prof Omar Yaghi, seen here testing a prototype in California’s Death Valley, grew up in a refugee community in Jordan. Photograph: Atoco
Natricia Duncan Caribbean correspondent
Sat 21 Feb 2026
A Nobel laureate’s environmentally friendly invention that provides clean water if central supplies are knocked out by a hurricane or drought could be a life saver for vulnerable islands, its founder says.
The invention, by the chemist Prof Omar Yaghi, uses a type of science called reticular chemistry to create molecularly engineered materials, which can extract moisture from the air and harvest water even in arid and desert conditions.
Atoco, a technology company that Yaghi founded, said its units, comparable in size to a 20ft shipping container and powered entirely by ultra-low-grade thermal energy, could be placed in local communities to generate up to 1,000 litres of clean water every day, even if centralised electricity and water sources are interrupted by drought or storm damage.
Yaghi, who won the 2025 Nobel prize award in chemistry, said the invention would change the world and benefit islands in the Caribbean, which are prone to drought. He added that it could be a solution for countries needing to get water to marooned communities after hurricanes such as Beryl and Melissa, which left thousands without water.
“Hurricanes such as Melissa or Beryl unleashed heavy flooding, destroying homes and crops and impacting thousands of lives in the Caribbean. This devastation is a stark reminder of the urgent need for enhanced water supply resilience in vulnerable areas, particularly small island nations susceptible to extreme weather events,” Yaghi said.
The invention, Yaghi added, could provide a climate-friendly and sustainable alternative to other water sourcing options such as desalination, which may pose a threat to ecosystems when concentrated salty brine is released back into the ocean.
Last month, a UN report said the planet had entered a “global water bankruptcy era” with nearly three-quarters of the world’s population living in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water insecure.
“Around 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation and about 4 billion experience severe water scarcity for at least one month a year,” the report said.
In the three-island Caribbean nation of Grenada, which was devastated by Hurricane Beryl in 2024, Yaghi’s invention offers a ray of hope, particularly for Carriacou and Petite Martinique that bore the brunt of the disaster and face a triple threat of storms, drought and coastal erosion.
“The technology’s ability to function off-grid using only ambient energy is particularly compelling for our context,” said the Carriacou government official and environmentalist Davon Baker.
Carriacou and Petite Martinique, which are still experiencing the after-effects of Beryl, are forced to import water from Grenada to deal with dry seasons that appear to be getting more intense and longer every year.
“We’re currently considering comprehensive recovery and resilience strategies, and the atmospheric water-harvesting technology Prof Yaghi developed addresses several critical challenges we face: the high cost and carbon intensity, as well as the contamination risk, of water importation; vulnerability of centralised systems to hurricane damage; and the need for decentralised solutions that can operate when traditional infrastructure fails,” Baker said.
Yaghi, who grew up in a refugee community in Jordan, said he was inspired by the hardships he endured in a home with no running water or electricity. Giving his Nobel prize banquet speech, he recalled water arriving to his desert community from the government once every week or two.
“I remember the whisper through our neighbourhood, ‘the water is coming’, and the urgency as I rushed to fill every container I could find before the flow stopped.”
Describing the invention as “a science capable of reimagining matter” he urged leaders to “remove barriers, protect academic freedom” and “welcome global talent”.
“On climate, the hour for collective action has already arrived. The science is here. What we need now is courage – courage scaled to the enormity of the task – so we may gift the next generation not only carbon capture, but a planet worthy of their hopes,” he said.
Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the U.S. the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Saturday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)