Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · 13d

The @ametsoc.org Climate Variability & Change (CVC) Committee is recruiting new members! If you’re passionate about advancing climate science and service, I encourage you to get involved. It is incredibly rewarding.

Apply here: www.ametsoc.org/ams/get-invo...

Climate Variability and Change

The CVC committee divides among its members the responsibilities, which include organization of the Climate Variability and Change Symposium at the AMS annual meeting, various awards (AMS and STAC), s...

www.ametsoc.org

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · 25d

Noteworthy that this type of analysis would not be much harder without an emissions reporting mandate.

Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · 25d

EPA plans to roll back GHG reporting—just as we learn US transport emissions have cost the US economy $68B: zenodo.org/records/1708...

The proposal isn't deregulation, it’s a tax on Americans through unchecked pollution.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · 27d

This important work is very consilient with our attribution of extreme heat to carbon majors in @nature.com earlier this year: tinyurl.com/nhffeezv

It is a great thing for science when independent groups with independent methods come to the same conclusions.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Aug 14

With the EPA targeting the Endangerment Finding, @ccallahan45.bsky.social, Alex Gottlieb, & I conducted an end-to-end attribution of climate damages from U.S. power sector emissions.

The result: $78 billion in climate losses to the U.S. economy over 1973–2023.

See here: zenodo.org/records/1687...

Left: Annual-scale direct economic damages to the U.S. economy from the U.S. electric power sector emissions over the 1973-2023 period in billions of U.S. dollars benchmarked to the 2015 dollar value ($US2015). Right: Cumulative direct economic damages from U.S. power sector emissions, equivalent to the integral under the curve at the left.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Aug 13

Last year, Alex Gottlieb and I showed the concerning nonlinear snow loss with warming that occurs around -8°C (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).

This year, we show why: it is a simple counting exercise of days above freezing. Our latest in @agu.org Water Resources Research: doi.org/10.1029/2024...

Evidence of human influence on Northern Hemisphere snow loss - Nature

Snowpack reconstructions for major river basins in the Northern Hemisphere reveal that the snowpack has declined in almost half of the basins, with roughly one-third of the declines attributable to hu...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Justin S. Mankin

Flavio Lehner @climateflavors.bsky.social · Jul 26

Please consider joining our #AGU session on beautifully complex Water-Energy-Carbon interactions with a broad scope from theory to applied science.

Invited talks by Julia Green @juliakgreen.bsky.social and Gabe Kooperman.

Promotional graphic for the AGU25 conference session titled "B008 - Advances in Understanding Water-Energy-Carbon Interactions." It announces a call for abstracts due July 30, 2025, at 23:59 EDT. The central question posed is: "How do water-energy-carbon interactions shape terrestrial biosphere responses to global change?" Key topics include coupling of water-energy-carbon cycles, bridging scales and processes, climate change sensitivities and impacts, and applications for climate resilience. The image features headshots and affiliations of invited speakers Julia Green (University of Arizona) and Gabe Kooperman (University of Georgia), and conveners YanLan Liu (Ohio State), Justin Mankin (Dartmouth), Dan Gianotti (MIT), Flavio Lehner (Cornell), and Xiangtao Xu (Cornell). The background shows a scenic natural landscape with trees.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Jun 5

Come do a postdoc with our group at Dartmouth, documenting and projecting climate impacts!

Applications will be evaluated until the position is filled.

Salary, benefits, and other details here:

apply.interfolio.com/168708

Reach out to me ([email protected]) with questions.

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Reposted by Justin S. Mankin

Eric Roston @eroston.bsky.social · Apr 29

OUT: You can’t connect extreme weather to climate change

5Mn AGO: You can’t connect extreme weather to fossil-fuel companies

IN: 🎁🔗⤵️
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Scientists Tally Oil Majors’ Climate Damage With Eye to Legal Liability

New research breaks down economic losses from global warming and attributes them to individual companies. It could bolster lawsuits against big emitters.

www.bloomberg.com

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Reposted by Justin S. Mankin

Abigail Swann, PhD @ecoclimatelab.bsky.social · Apr 28

Foundation-funded postdoc funding opportunity to work in WA state! Interested in applying to work with me on climate on land or global carbon cycle dynamics? Reach out! Info sessions in May and June, due date June 26. www.wrfseattle.org/grants/wrf-p...

Postdoctoral Fellowships - Washington Research Foundation

Fellowship Details Fellowships include three years of salary support for the postdoc at an eligible research institution in Washington state. The salary for the first year is $80,000, increasing to […...

www.wrfseattle.org

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Apr 28

See below, from the article itself (rather than AI) — you should read it!

I would gently offer that creating human benefit does not absolve you of the harms you also create. One can see that, in say, the pharmaceutical industry being held to account for the opioid crisis.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Apr 25

We are—as a nation—intentionally blinding ourselves at the precise moment we need to see our planetary insult most clearly.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Apr 25

As a former GISS postdoc, this is such a bummer, not least of which because the disruption and ambiguity can easily become a pretense for laying off many more highly trained and talented scientists dedicated to the public good.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Apr 24

Great point—please see here: rdcu.be/ei0T5

Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability

Nature - A transparent and reproducible scientific framework is introduced to formalize how trillions in economic losses are attributable to the extreme heat caused by emissions from fossil fuel...

rdcu.be

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Reposted by Justin S. Mankin

James Dinneen @jamesdinneen.bsky.social · Apr 23

This could be a big deal for the hundreds of climate lawsuits underway around the world. @jsmankin.bsky.social and @ccallahan45.bsky.social link emissions from specific fossil fuel companies to trillions of dollars in damages.

“I think this is going to be the future of climate litigation." 🧪🔌💡

Can climate science attribute economic damage to major polluters?

Climate researchers argue their science has advanced enough to directly link emissions from particular companies to damages from specific extreme weather events

www.newscientist.com

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Apr 23

What would be strange? The counterfactual is simply a world where one emitter forgoes their emissions.

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Reposted by Justin S. Mankin

Seth Borenstein @borenbears.bsky.social · Apr 23

apnews.com/article/clim... world's biggest companies have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates

The world's biggest companies have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates

A new study estimates that the world’s biggest corporations have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, which is a shade less than the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States last ...

apnews.com

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Apr 23

In it we show the trillions of dollars of economic losses from extreme heat caused by the emissions of individual carbon majors.

That’s from just one hazard. The scope of loss, while massive, is just the tip of the iceberg.

We are systematically underestimating the costs of climate change.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Apr 23

Can scientists trace climate losses back to the emissions from individual fossil fuel companies?

Yes, we can.

The inimitable @ccallahan45.bsky.social and I provide an 'end-to-end' attribution framework that can be applied in many climate accountability contexts:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability - Nature

A transparent and reproducible scientific framework is introduced to formalize how trillions in economic losses are attributable to the extreme heat caused by emissions from fossil fuel companies, whi...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Justin S. Mankin

Valérie Masson-Delmotte @valmasdel.bsky.social · Mar 3

"The universities control the knowledge in our society (...) We have to agressivly attack the universities (...). Fundamental lies that feminism is liberating (...) There is wisdom in what Nixon said, the professors are the enemy "

bryanalexander.org/politics/the...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR6...

J.D. Vance | The Universities are the Enemy | National Conservatism Conference II

YouTube video by National Conservatism

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Justin S. Mankin

Valérie Masson-Delmotte @valmasdel.bsky.social · Feb 25

I receive numerous requests from journalists regarding the current situation with the Intergovernemental Panel on Climate Change.

I am not involved in the work of the IPCC for the 7th Assessment Cycle (AR7).

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Feb 24

"What's that? The 10% that accounts for 60% of the country's wealth accounts for 50% of spending?"

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Feb 24

This headline is an astounding (and gross) editorial sleight of hand.

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Feb 6

Water memories are short in the American West. Just two years after the 2020–23 drought, the Southwest drifts back to its climatically preferred state: drought.

This 2021 op-ed feels relevant as we approach the 2025 dry season with low snowpack and reservoirs: shorturl.at/Uvsyv

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Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · Jan 20

High CO2 is expected to boost runoff via plant responses, but our results challenge this. Conditioning plant-driven runoff changes on plant-forced precipitation changes, we find runoff declines are as common as increases, with CO2-driven runoff boosts over just 5% of land: shorturl.at/4zM7N

Projected runoff declines from plant physiological effects on precipitation - Nature Water

This study shows that Earth system models disagree on the spatial distribution of plant-induced precipitation changes but indicate that plant responses are as likely to decrease runoff as they are to ...

www.nature.com

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