Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Lea @climateprof.bsky.social · May 23

The best defense of the university I've ever read, by Steven Pinker:

Harvard Derangement Syndrome www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/o...

Opinion | Harvard Derangement Syndrome

www.nytimes.com

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Jenn Fehrenbacher @jennfehrenbacher.bsky.social · Apr 2

Need micropaleontology slides? I started a company! MicroPaleoWorks.com. If you need slides, hit me up. Prices range from 1.50 to 2.20 each depending on the variety. We can customize with numbering for a fee. We are a #smallbusiness #womenowned #madeintheUSA using #canadianaluminum & #recycledpaper

MicroPaleoWorks | micropaleoslides

MicroPaleoWorks, a Foraminarium company. Supplier of micropaleoslides for foraminifera and other microfossils or small samples

MicroPaleoWorks.com

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Gavin Foster @thefosterlab.bsky.social · Apr 1

Very pleased to have co-edited the latest version of Elements Magazine (www.elementsmagazine.org) "Biomineral Geochemistry" with @amoeba-lab.bsky.social and Ros Rickaby. Topics range from controls on CaCO3 polymorph to the role of amorphous intermediate phases and "vital effects". 🧪🌊🪸⚒️

Cover of Elements Issue entitled Biomineral Geochemistry: Windows into Past Climates and Calcification. The picture shows amorphous calcium carbonate particles - the precursors to many biominerals

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David Lea @climateprof.bsky.social · Mar 21

Polling of my global warming class @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social for the 20 years I have taught it.

Results:

Sense of alarm hit a low in 2012 ("Climategate" era), peaked in 2019 (protest era), declined slightly since.

But 2025 "at end" of class was back up.

Why? Fires in LA (Jan), or new admin?

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Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · Mar 12

🧵 I'd like to share some of the recent and ongoing collaborative projects I’m most proud of from my time at NOAA. Some will continue on in one form or another, but others will not - a direct result of the cuts hitting science across the board.

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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · Mar 11

A fun case of usual-unusual: Most luminescence in the sea is blue-green, but Tomopteris worms emit yellow light.

With Warren Francis, we found a species that emits blue light — unusual but usual. 🦑🧪
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-016-3028-2
doi.org/10.1002/bio.2671

Three panels: On top is a face on view of a large Tomopteris polychaete, with orange pigment spots along its long anterior antennae. Lower left shows the yellow bioluminescent emission typical of the genus Tomopteris. Lower right shows the blue bioluminescent emission of a Tomopteris species. This color is typical for marine animals, but atypical for Tomopteris, which is the odd-species-out for luminescent emission spectra.
Blue-emitting Tomopteris were independently discovered by our lab in the Pacific and by Anaïd Gouveneaux working in Jerôme Mallefet's lab in Belgium.
Warren determined that the chemical which gives the yellow color seems to be aloe-emodin, but the function of using yellow light rather than blue remains unknown. See the two manuscripts linked in the main text, and references therein, for more detailed info.

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Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · Mar 11

This is a big deal, mainly because it is a very thorough piece of work, but also because the sensitivity of ice sheet models are still highly dependent on important details of the topography and conditions at the bottom of the ice sheet that remain highly uncertain.

Peter T Fretwell @ptfretwell.bsky.social · Mar 10

Bedmap3 is now out
rdcu.be/ecTmO

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David Lea @climateprof.bsky.social · Mar 5

Worth noting that the Princeton GFDL lab @voosen.me highlights was where Nobel prize winner Syukuro Manabe did his pioneering work developing the first climate model used to test the theory of global warming.

Paul Voosen @voosen.me · Mar 4

My latest: The mass firings at NOAA can feel abstract. Here's what was lost at one research center -- the birthplace of climate modeling.

Fired staff became U.S. citizens to pursue these dream jobs, only to have their dreams upended.

NOAA firings hit the birthplace of weather and climate forecasting

Dismissed researchers were improving severe weather predictions

www.science.org

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Reposted by David Lea

Zeke Hausfather @hausfath.bsky.social · Mar 3

February 2025 was the third warmest February on record after 2024 and 2016, at 1.59C above preindustrial level.

This is the first time a month has not been the warmest or second warmest on record since June 2023.

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Zeke Hausfather @hausfath.bsky.social · Mar 3

Global temperatures fell sharply in the first half of the month, but have been rising in the past week.

This may be a sign that the short-term cooling effect of La Nina is at long last kicking in, though it it too early to know for sure.

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · Jan 29

A shift back toward much wetter conditions in NorCal now appears likely by this weekend, with a pretty strong warm/wet #AtmosphericRiver potentially bringing heavy rain somewhere between SF Bay Area and Oregon border (likely heaviest northern/central Sierra). #CAwx #CAwater

ECMWF ensemble average accumulated precipitation forecast for next 10 days. It depends heavy rainfall across portions of Northern CA, especially northern Sierra.

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Sabin Center for Climate Change Law @sabincenter.bsky.social · Jan 20

🚨 🚀🌍 Today, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law is launching three online tools – the Climate Backtracker, the Inflation Reduction Act Tracker & the Silencing Science Tracker – to keep tabs on the Trump administration’s climate rollbacks & anti-science actions: https://buff.ly/4jsf5HJ
🧵⤵️

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Robert Rohde @rarohde.bsky.social · Jan 22

More than 20% of the Earth's surface recorded its locally hottest annual average temperature last year.

40% of the Earth had its hottest recorded year since 2020, and 85% since the year 2000.

🧪

Global map showing the year that each location recorded its hottest annual average from among the available years 1850-2024.

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Andrew Freedman @afreedma.bsky.social · Jan 21

If you're looking for the text of the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement (which takes a yr. to be in effect, but the U.S. is treating as immediate): it is here. Also cuts off US funding to the UNFCCC and US int'l climate finance. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements – The White House

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1.

www.whitehouse.gov

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Zeke Hausfather @hausfath.bsky.social · Jan 17

Global temperatures have started 2025 at record-setting levels – above where they were in January 2024 despite the emergence of modest La Nina conditions in the tropical Pacific.

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · Jan 17

After becoming increasingly enmeshed in the wildfire world, you start to notice things about the way we've systematically altered our relationship with the natural environment in a way that has increased the risk of destructive fires. And then you stop being able to unsee them.

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Zeke Hausfather @hausfath.bsky.social · Jan 15

I have a new paper in Dialogues on Climate Change exploring climate outcomes under current policies. I find that we are likely headed toward 2.7C by 2100 (with uncertainties from 1.9C to 3.7C), and that high end emissions scenarios have become much less likely.

journals.sagepub.com...

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Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · Jan 15

New post on The Climate Brink from Zeke @hausfath.bsky.social about our climate future. With current policies, we’re on track for a bit less than 3C, with 2030 NDCs we’re on track for about 2.5C, and with net zero pledges we’re on track for a bit less than 2C.
www.theclimatebrink.com/p/moving-awa...

Moving away from high-end emissions scenarios

I have a new commentary in Dialogues on Climate Change exploring climate outcomes in current policy scenarios

www.theclimatebrink.com

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · Jan 14

Our recent review on "Hydroclimate Volatility on a warming Earth" will be in front of the journal paywall for all to read/download freely for 14 days (until 1/23). Thereafter, this specific (ReadCube) link will grant read-only access to all: https://rdcu.be/d6ceH

Hydroclimate volatility on a warming Earth

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment - Rapid transitions between extreme wet and extreme dry conditions — ‘hydroclimate whiplash’ — have marked environmental and societal...

rdcu.be

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Chad Thackeray @cthackeray.bsky.social · Jan 14

In a new report, we explore the weather and climate factors that allowed the Los Angeles fires to become so large and destructive. #PalisadesFire #EatonFire
Full report: sustainablela.ucla.edu/2025lawildfi...
Summary: www.ioes.ucla.edu/article/clim...

Climate Change A Factor In Unprecedented LA Fires

As a series of historic fires continue to blaze in Los Angeles, UCLA scholars offer insight into the causes, fallout and future mitigation.

www.ioes.ucla.edu

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · Jan 12

New Weather West post out now: "Following historic wildfire disasters in Southern California, a statewide dry spell intensifies and extreme fire weather conditions persist in the south." #CAwx #CAfire #PalisadesFire #EatonFire #LAfires
weatherwest.com/arch...

Following historic wildfire disasters in Southern California, a statewide dry spell intensifies and extreme fire weather conditions persist in the south - Weather West

Remarkable wet-to-dry transition combined with extreme downslope wind event yields dual wildfire catastrophes in SoCal It's never good feeling when a dire weather or disaster risk prognostication comes to fruition; that "pit in your stomach" sensation has been described by many meteorologists, climate scientists, emergency managers, and disaster-focused researchers over the years. It certainly encapsulates

weatherwest.com

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Zeke Hausfather @hausfath.bsky.social · Jan 12

Scientists developed the first climate models in the late 1960s (for which the Nobel Prize in physics was recently awarded!).

How have these models held up against what happened in the real world after they were published? Surprisingly well, it turns out:

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · Jan 9

Is there a link between #ClimateChange & increasing risk/severity of #wildfire in California--including the still-unfolding disaster? Yes. Is climate change the only factor at play? No, of course not. So what's really going on? [Thread] #CAfire #CAwx #LAfires iopscience.iop.org/a...

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Berkeley Earth @berkeleyearth.org · Jan 10

🚨 Global Temperature Report for 2024

2024 was the hottest year since instrumental measurements began.

3.3 billion people had their locally warmest year.

The warming rate appears to have increased, likely due to reductions in aerosol pollution & cloud cover.

berkeleyearth.org/global-tempe...

🧵

Map showing warming patterns in 2024 relative to the 1951-1980 average

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