Bob Kopp
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Bob Kopp
@bobkopp.net
14K followers 6.8K following 2.3K posts
#Climate & sea level science + policy. Rutgers University. All views my own. www.bobkopp.net
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bobkopp.net
The Trump Administration's announced withdraw from the IPCC is disappointing, but not surprising. US scientists will continue to play key roles in the @ipcc.bsky.social. A statement from the US Academic Alliance for the IPCC:
The US Academic Alliance for the IPCC (USAA-IPCC) was formed in March 2025 in part to prepare for this possibility and to ensure that US scientists remain able to engage in IPCC work regardless of the status and role of the US government. With the support of the USAA-IPCC, more than 70 US citizens and US-based experts who are currently serving the IPCC as coordinating lead authors, lead authors, review editors and committee members will continue to play these roles. “US climate scientists have made incredible contributions to understanding our planet’s life support systems and the impacts and risks of climate change. Their role as key players in IPCC reports have helped the US maintain our preeminent position in science and technology, and this global scientific cooperation will continue despite this unfortunate decision,” said Dr. Pamela McElwee, Professor of Human Ecology at Rutgers University, who serves as chair of the steering committee of the Alliance. “There is a reason we call our community the global scientific enterprise. We cannot grow, innovate, or advance unless we are linked together sharing, analyzing, and deliberating on vital climate data through critical international organizations like the IPCC. In the wake of this devastating move, AGU pledges to do all it can to bridge global partnership, research, and dialogue,” said Dr. Brandon Jones, President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which hosts the Alliance. The Trump Administration began disengaging from IPCC prior to yesterday’s formal announcement. Since February of 2025, the US State Department has not nominated experts for involvement in IPCC work, nor supported travel to IPCC meetings for selected authors, a role they have played in all prior administrations. The US government also did not participate in either of the IPCC business sessions in 2025, the first time the US has not been in attendance since the IPCC’s founding in 1988. As a result, the USAA-IPCC has assumed a key leadership role in nominating US scientists for consideration as authors for IPCC reports, including for the Seventh Assessment Report (nominating 282 authors in April 2025) and the Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (nominating 33 authors in December 2025), as well as for roles on the IPCC Task Group on Data Support and for participation in several expert workshops. AGU and the USAA-IPCC have also raised funds to support travel for US scientists and technical experts selected by IPCC to attend author meetings and workshops. Since the founding of the IPCC over four decades ago, US scientists and other experts have made critical contributions, leading formal processes as Working Group co-chairs as well as filling vitally important author and reviewer roles. IPCC findings have shaped science-based policy at all levels—from global climate agreements to local resilience plans—and strengthen the ability of policy communities to make informed decisions. Ensuring US scientists remain fully engaged in the IPCC and the global climate science community will lead to important new research opportunities and international collaborations that benefit the US in substantial ways. The USAA-IPCC looks forward to continuing our support of US climate experts, climate science research, and the IPCC. —-- The USAA-IPCC (https://www.usaa-ipcc.org/) is composed of all the US academic institutions that have observer status with the IPCC – Colby College, College of the Atlantic, Dickinson College, Emory University, Indiana University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Washington University in St. Louis, University of California San Diego, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Yale University – together with the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which hosts the Alliance.
January 8, 2026 at 8:08 PM
bobkopp.net
Join us in Montreal this June for the @agu.org Chapman Conference on Updating Usable Projections of Future Sea Level. www.agu.org/chapman-sea-...
Updating Usable Projections of Future Sea Level AGU Chapman Conference Montreal, QC, Canada | 8-11 June 2026 Abstracts Due: 11 February 2026 www.agu.org/chapman-sea-level
January 8, 2026 at 3:06 PM
bobkopp.net
Yeah, that is not, in fact, a National Climate Assessment.
Tweet by Ryan Maue, Cato Institute affiliate who briefly served as NOAA chief scientist in 2020: Beginning work on NCA6 with Gemini 3 Pro and Grok. This is a volunteer effort that will be mostly completed before end of 2025. The climate assessment will be "living and breathing" with surgical "Red Team" capabilities within an intelligence platform. 15 USC 2936 SEC. 106. SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT. On a periodic basis (not less frequently than every 4 years, the Council, through the Committee, shall prepare and submit to the President and the Congress an assessment which— (1) integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings; (2) analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and (3) analyzes current trends in global change, both human-inducted and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.
December 22, 2025 at 1:04 PM
bobkopp.net
I’m sure Jonathan Greenblatt is on top of it. He was nominated in June, after all.
No results found for "anti-defamation league" "jeremy carl"
December 21, 2025 at 12:01 AM
bobkopp.net
Not sure how I feel about this. Top movie of the month I turned 10.
The Addams Family is a 1991 American supernatural black comedy film based on the the comic strip characters created by Charles Addams. Directed by former cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld in his feature directorial debut, the film stars Anjelica Huston, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance as Morticia Addams, Raul Julia as Gomez Addams, and Christopher Lloyd as Fester Addams. The film focuses on a bizarre, macabre, aristocratic family who reconnect with someone whom they believe to be a long-lost relative, Gomez's brother Fester Addams.
December 20, 2025 at 12:37 AM
bobkopp.net
Here’s a photo of about half the US-based authors serving as @ipcc.bsky.social authors this cycle, taking at the first lead author meeting in Paris this week. Most would not be here without organizational and fundraising support provided by @agu.org to the US Academic Alliance for the IPCC.
A photo of about 30 of the about 60 US lead authors and coordinating lead authors participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Seventh Assessment Report. Most were nominated by the AGU-coordinated US Academic Alliance for the IPCC and has their travel funded through philanthropic funds raised by AGU.
December 6, 2025 at 5:33 AM
bobkopp.net
Haaretz does good reporting, but reporting an unbalanced panel as though it is an unbiased representation of Jewish Americans is not. @etannechin.bsky.social
Haaretz: Majority of American Jews Believe Incoming NY Mayor Zohran Mamdani Is Antisemitic, New Poll Finds The poll, released by the Jewish People Policy Institute, found that two-thirds of American Jews believe Mamdani's election will lead to Jews feeling less safe, while a third feel 'hopeful' about the 34-year-old mayor elect JPPI: Survey Data and its Implications This report is an analysis of a survey administered to 745 American Jews registered for JPPI's Voice of the Jewish People panel. Generally, it can be said that the survey tends to reflect the attitudes of "connected" American Jews, that is, those with a relatively strong attachment to the Jewish community and/or Israel and/or Jewish identity. Approximately 50 respondents from Britain and 100 from Canada also took part in the survey. Unless otherwise indicated, the findings reflect the attitudes of respondents from the United States only. The JPPI Voice of the Jewish People Index survey is compiled by JPPI fellows Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov with the assistance of Yael Levinovsky. Prof. David Steinberg serves as statistical consultant. JPPI panel demographics. 20% have lived in Israel, 45% have visited multiple times, 85% are affiliated. Also, there are some probable errors in this table — 46% being “partially Jewish” is an order of magnitude larger than past JPPI polls.
November 29, 2025 at 12:49 PM
bobkopp.net
@mikiesherrill.bsky.social was elected on a platform aggressively critical of PJM
4) I will instruct my Attorney General to take Trump and New Jersey's grid operator, PJM, to court - in coordination with governors in our region - to force them to end their mismanagement and instead accelerate the development of cheaper and cleaner energy sources and connect new power generation to our grid immediately. a) New energy projects can't lower utility bills if they're waiting years to start producing energy, but PJM refuses to connect them quickly. b) President Trump is actively thwarting the development of new, needed power plants. I will take him on over his destructive efforts to block crucial power supplies, which will reduce our energy rates and make our air cleaner.
November 27, 2025 at 2:03 AM
bobkopp.net
Because I speak English?
alternative /ôl-tûr'na-tiv, ăl-/ 二 noun 1. One of a number of possible choices or courses of action. "There are plenty of alternatives to conventional advertising. " 2. A choice or course of action that is mutually exclusive with another: synonym: choice. "The alternative to staying in that dead-end job is to quit." Similar: choice 3. A situation presenting a choice between two mutually exclusive possibilities. "people facing the alternative of selling their homes or going bankrupt." adjective 1. Being one of a number of possible choices or courses of action. "The highway is closed. Seek alternative routes." 2. Being one of two mutually exclusive choices or courses of action. "How effective is the alternative treatment?" 3. Substitute or other. "Several members of the audience provided alternative views on the topic." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik
November 22, 2025 at 2:39 PM
bobkopp.net
Similar story here, though we have been working to optimize a heat pump system (4-head Fujitsu system) that was installed before we bought the house seven years ago. We didn’t disconnect, so most months are just paying $10/month service charge. Heat pump water heater and induction stove.
Bar chart of gas usage over time
November 22, 2025 at 1:52 PM
bobkopp.net
@agu.org has shown some really impressive leadership in this difficult year. Really acting like a “Union”, not just an “Association” or a “Society.” Kudos to both their elected and staff leadership.
AGU continues to serve as a nexus for action. We remain actively engaged in litigation to oppose the unjust firings of U.S. federal scientists and the capricious re-organization of federal agencies that harm the scientific enterprise. AGU also urges lawmakers in Congress to fulfill their responsibility to the nation by completing full-year appropriations for federal science agencies and ensuring those funds are protected and used as intended. Stopgap measures and short-term budgets are not enough. Science cannot operate on uncertainty, nor can the public rely on agencies hamstrung by political stalemate. The United States needs stable, long-term investment and clear guardrails so that every dollar strengthens public safety, fuels innovation, and advances our shared future. But Congress will only act if we make our voices impossible to ignore. Every scientist, every student, every advocate who believes in evidence-based decision-making has a role to play. Visit AGU's Science Policy Action Center today to contact U.S. lawmakers and demand the support that science and the people it serves deserve Together, we can keep science standing strong for the nation and the world
November 13, 2025 at 1:51 PM
bobkopp.net
Also, you can’t fit an exponential to this curve. That doesn’t mean rapid acceleration of ice sheet loss is not a concern — it absolutely is — but that you need to understand something about the relevant physics and not just curve fit like Hansen did in the 2000s and 2010s
Antarctic ice sheet mass changes, as measured by GRACE gravity satellites. Because of increased accumulation of snow in a warming climate net Antarctic mass stabilizes in the 2020s, even though substantial loss is continuing in the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica.
November 12, 2025 at 1:59 AM
bobkopp.net
In line with projections.
How do the STAP projections for New Jersey compare with observations? In comparing the STAP projections to tide-gauge observations, it is essential to be cognizant that the STAP is projecting changes in 19-year average sea level (e.g., the reported 2040 projections are the projected average sea level over the period 2031-2049). The projections do not include interannual variability, which at Atlantic City (for example) adds + 0.2 ft (0.06 m) variability (2ơ) around the 19-year average. The closest SLR projection the STAP can compare to observations is the 2020 projection (or the measured average of sea level during the period 2011-2029). Since the 2011-2029 average sea-level has not yet been fully observed at the time of publication, the STAP must extrapolate the observed tide-gauge record to estimate the 2011-2029 average sea-level. The Federal Interagency SLR report (Sweet et al., 2022) constructed quadratic extrapolations of the 1970-2020 tide-gauge record. The Federal Interagency SLR report partially removed natural variability through regression on climate indices representing the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and North Atlantic Oscillation. The Federal Interagency SLR report also accounted for serially correlated variability in estimating the associated uncertainty. The Federal Interagency SLR report's extrapolations for 2020 (adjusted to match the 2005 or 1995-2014 baseline period used in this report) are shown in Table 8. In New Jersey, the extrapolated value in 2020 relative to 1995-2014 ranges from 0.31 ÷ 0.11 ft (0.09 ÷ 0.03 m) at Atlantic City to 0.37 ‡ 0.13 ft (0.11 ‡ 0.04 m) at Cape May. The notable diference between the two relatively proximal sites likely reflects differences in subsidence, potentially associated with groundwater withdrawal.
November 11, 2025 at 8:16 PM
bobkopp.net
Here’s what we had to say about that in the US government’s 2010 social cost of carbon report. Details slightly different, basic picture not so much. And differences are all at a level of detail not provided in the RS report.
As noted above, the damage functions underlying the three IAMs used to estimate the SCC may not capture the economic effects of all possible adverse consequences of climate change and may therefore lead to underestimates of the SCC (Mastrandrea 2009). In particular, the models' functional forms may not adequately capture: (1) potentially discontinuous "tipping point" behavior in Earth systems, (2) inter-sectoral and inter-regional interactions, including global security impacts of high-end warming, and (3) limited near-term substitutability between damage to natural systems and increased consumption. It is the hope of the interagency group that over time researchers and modelers will work to fill these gaps and that the SCC estimates used for regulatory analysis by the Federal government will continue to evolve with improvements in modeling. In the meantime, we discuss some of the available evidence.
October 28, 2025 at 1:31 AM
bobkopp.net
Actually, it’s been a few years since I read John Summers’ essay, I’d forgotten this bit about robot-assisted ABA: www.linguafranca.com/p/the-mismea...
everyone. Skinner's technique of reinforcement has shaped the design of video games, dating apps, slot machines, social media, and product marketing. The digital architecture of mass behavior modification, busy with prompts, notifications, and nudges, mostly just aims to herd us into goals chosen for us. The automation of life is plain to see in the unfolding future of ABA. Seventy ABA classrooms in New England already use robots for autism instruction. I telephoned the manufacturer in Connecticut to pose a question missing from the excited newspaper stories. No, a spokesperson avowed, the company hasn't collected any data to justify its claims for robot-assisted ABA. The evidence is beside the point, but the irony is rich. Trained to disregard the inner lives of their clients, behavior analysts themselves may be replaced by robots.
October 28, 2025 at 12:26 AM
bobkopp.net
Somehow I had missed this May White House budget fact sheet, making use of a common right-wing dialectical spelling of “Jewish” www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
ENDING THE GREEN NEW SCAM President Trump is committed to eliminating funding for the globalist climate agenda while unleashing American energy production. The President's FY 2026 Budget eliminates funding for the Green New Scam.
October 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
bobkopp.net
This is a useful table, but it seems like it's making a strawman argument about climate change governance without Earth system tipping points.

Most of these characteristics apply to climate change in general, at least if you're concerned about societal impacts.
GTP 2025, Table 1.1.1: Differences between conventional climate change governance and governance for ESTPs Characteristics include: thresholds, acceleration of change, increased magnitude of impacts, trend reversals, different distribution of impacts, novel impacts, and cascade effects.
October 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
bobkopp.net
Sent Steve a letter:
Dear Steve, I hope you are well. In your Monday WSJ column, you criticize the National Academies for not reviewing your DOE Climate Working Group report. To my knowledge, the Academies have never offered an unrequested review of a government scientific report. I am sure they would have been happy to review your report if DOE had asked them to. Though DOE chose not to do so, under Information Quality Act guidelines, an independent peer review (like that the Academies often conducts for the federal government) is required for it to be legal to use the report in rule making. (See Section III in 70 FR 2664) In your Monday column, you do not mention that — seeing no evidence that your report had been the subject of any meaningful independent peer review — more than 85 experts volunteered our time in the month of August to review your report. The approximately 450-page compendium of comments, co-edited by Andrew Dessler and me, evaluates each portion of your report. In case you have not seen it, you can find the expert review here: https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.175745244.41950365/v2 Your column recapitulates a number of the errors and misrepresentations in the DOE report, which are evaluated in detail in the expert review. For example, you state that US heat waves “aren’t more common in recent decades than they were in the decades around 1900”. As we write in the expert review, the DOE report “highlights the Dust Bowl period of the 1930s as a time of unusually hot temperatures in the United States.” However, “over such a small area [as the contiguous US], natural variability can play a large but temporary role. The Dust Bowl was indeed an exceptional event, although unrelated to greenhouse-gas forcing, and the decadal climate conditions that drove the Dust Bowl are not occurring today…. If you take out the 1930s, there are clear trends [in the contiguous US] towards more extreme temperatures due almost certainly to radiative forcing.” Further, “if one examines a larger region, where the Dust Bowl’s influence is diluted, then there is an obvious, strong trend towards more extreme temperatures.” You also introduce in your column some errors that are not in the DOE report. For example, the DOE report addresses global-mean sea-level rise only in passing, focusing instead on specific US tide-gauge records. In your column, you claim that a global sea-level acceleration comparable to the current one occurred in the 1930s, a claim we discussed before about eight years ago. In 2017, I told you, based on our analysis in Hay et al. (2015), that the rate of global-mean sea-level rise in the 21st century was likely faster than during its previous high in the 1930s-1940s (notably, also a period of significant global-mean warming, preceding the slower sea level rise and lull of warming in the 1950s-1970s). At the time, global-mean sea-level acceleration had already been sustained for close to five decades, compared to about two decades in the 1920s and 1930s. The evidence in the last eight years has only gotten stronger. We are now in an approximately 60-year period of nearly unbroken global-mean sea-level acceleration, and the current rate of rise revealed by both satellite data and tide-gauge analyses — exceeding 4 mm/yr — is unequivocally higher than at any previous time revealed by tide-gauge reconstructions or satellite data (see, for example, Dangendorf et al., 2024; Figure 8 therein reproduced below). (Note that this finding is supported by Frederikse et al., 2020, a key figure from which is reproduced in a simplified format in your book Unsettled.) Further, combining tide-gauge and geological data shows that there has been a sustained acceleration in the long-term rates of rise since the mid-nineteenth century. Modern rates of 60-year-average global-mean sea level rise exceeded earlier Common Era rates by the 1860s, and the current rate of global-mean sea level rise virtually certain to be higher than any century-scale period in the last three millennia (Kemp et al 2018, Walker et al 2022; Figure 1 of the latter reproduced below). Furthermore, I don’t think either of us contest the fact that global-mean surface temperature is substantially higher today than in the 1930s and 1940s. It would, indeed, then be quite physically surprising if the rate of global-mean sea level rise were also not substantially higher. It would be tedious for both of us to respond further to the errors in your column, but I point you again to the expert review of your report: https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.175745244.41950365/v2 I encourage you not to continue to recapitulate the errors in the DOE report while ignoring the readily available evaluations in the expert review. Best, Bob P.S. I know from our past interactions that you view private correspondence sent to you as being publishable without notifying or attempting to get the consent of your correspondents. You have my permission to fairly quote from this letter, which I will also be posting publicly.
October 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
bobkopp.net
What’s more, geological data clearly reveal that the rate of global average sea level rise over the last sixty years was faster than during any comparable period in more than 2 millennia; and, indeed, this fact has been continuously true since the late 19th century. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Walker et al 2022. Fig. 1: Time of emergence of global sea-level rise. a Sixty-year average rates over the Common Era, where pre-industrial is 0–1700 CE. b Sixty-year average rates from 1700 to 2000 CE which increase concurrently with the probability that each 60-year interval and all subsequent 60-year intervals were greater than a random 60-year interval during the pre-industrial Common Era. The time of emergence year is given for 0.66, 0.90, and 0.95 probabilities. Model predictions are the mean with 1σ uncertainty.
October 8, 2025 at 1:59 AM
bobkopp.net
But global average sea level today has been on a sustained acceleration for over 50 years, a duration without precedent in the observational record, and the rate of rise in the last decade is substantially higher than in the 1930s. essd.copernicus.org/articles/16/...
Dangendorf et al 2024. Figure 8. GMSLs and nonlinear rates in comparison to former reconstructions. (a) Shown are the GMSL time series from this study (1900 to 2022) in comparison to selected former reconstructions. All time series have been adjusted to a common mean of zero over the overlapping period from 1993 to 2010. (b) The corresponding nonlinear trends as determined by a singular spectrum analysis with an embedding dimension of 15, which extracts signals that are representative of timescales longer than 30 years. Uncertainties are shown as shaded regions and represent 95 % confidence intervals.
October 8, 2025 at 1:59 AM
bobkopp.net
I sent him an email, since he clearly hadn’t seen it…
To The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov Dear Secretary Wright, I saw that you stated in a press conference yesterday that "there is no disagreement with what's in the [Climate Working Group] report." You probably have not seen our 85+ climate expert review of the Climate Working Group report, which was submitted as a public comment on August 30, but which appears not yet to have been processed for posting on Regulations.gov. You can find our review here: https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.175745244.41950365/v As explained at great length in the 450+ pages of our review, the Climate Working Group report currently fails to adequately represent the scientific understanding of climate change, and it would require very substantial revision before it could be relied upon by any federal agency or other entity. I hope that you find that our extensive expert review adequately addresses the question you raised in your press conference, "If the data and what we've said is wrong- as I read in countless newspaper articles, it's discredited data - what in the climate report is wrong?" Sincerely, Robert E. Kopp, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Rutgers University
September 26, 2025 at 6:38 PM
bobkopp.net
Not a huge deal compared to everything else wrong with the DOE Climate Working Group report, but I just noticed that the report claims to be "Copyright (C) 2025 United States."

Works produced by the United States government are not protected by copyright and are in the public domain.
Title page of "A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Cli,mate," a report by the US Department on Energy, claiming to be Copyright (C) 2025 United States.
September 26, 2025 at 1:51 PM
bobkopp.net
This is a baffling sentence — there seems to be some important premise hiding in that “therefore” that allows “predominantly genetic” to imply “largely untreatable”
From https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/09/21/trump-autism-announcement-tylenol-leucovorin/ The findings on leucovorin have sent ripples through the scientific community, sparking renewed debate about the complex causes of autism - a condition some experts had recently considered predominantly genetic, and therefore largely untreatable.
September 21, 2025 at 7:58 PM
bobkopp.net
It may seem hard to focus in at a time when climate research and higher education are both under assault, but as I and my co-authors argue here: Higher education institutions can accelerate societal climate action

academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
Higher education's roles in addressing the climate challenge: Workforce Development, Research, and Community Engagement, supported on a platform of Operations
September 17, 2025 at 6:13 PM
bobkopp.net
There are definitely still people out there not paying attention, but I haven’t found it that common. After all, this is what AR6 said:
A.4.3 A substantial 'emissions gap' exists between global GHG emissions in 2030 associated with the implementation of NDCs announced prior to COP26 and those associated with modelled mitigation pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot or limit warming to 2°C (>67%) assuming immediate action (high confidence). This would make it likely that warming will exceed 1.5°C during the 21st century (high confidence). Global modelled mitigation pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot or limit warming to 2°C (>67%) assuming immediate action imply deep global GHG emissions reductions this decade (high confidence) (see SPM Box 1, Table 1, B.6)27. Modelled pathways that are consistent with NDCs announced prior to COP26 until 2030 and assume no increase in ambition thereafter have higher emissions, leading to a median global warming of 2.8 [2.1 to 3.4] °C by 2100 (medium confidence). Many countries have signalled an intention to achieve net zero GHG or net zero CO, by around mid-century but pledges differ across countries in terms of scope and specificity, and limited policies are to date in place to deliver on them. (2.3.1, Table 2.2, Figure 2.5, Table 3.1, 4.1}
September 14, 2025 at 8:27 PM