1st stanza of this snippet is famous; but I’d never heard rest. Feels too real now. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; … The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Water/climate news & my own calculations when relevant, from CarsonCity (Wá∙šiw land), NV. Retired USGS & now p/t @CW3E/Scripps scientist Credentials: PhD.UCLA F.AGU F.AAAS M.NAE; www.mdettinger.com
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1st stanza of this snippet is famous; but I’d never heard rest. Feels too real now. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; … The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Imprint —> important
Not sure of some interpretations here (despite acknowledging growing authoritarianism, it seems to feel inclined that way underneath?), but the facts and overall contextualization are thought provoking. foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/01/e...
Calls to rethink tenet that the electric grid must supply all user demands at all times, sub-ing instead approach where superusers (e.g. data centers) face special rules & flexibility, paralleling how scarce supplies of Western water & natural gas are managed. insideclimatenews.org/news/2808202...
>97% of the Yosemite & Sequoia-Kings Canyon Natl Parks employee votes cast were to unionize, after 8 months of Trump-driven turmoil. So >600 staffers—incl interpretive park rangers, biologists, firefighters & others—belong to NFFE union. www.latimes.com/environment/... (paywalled but imprint)
Here @hannahritchie.bsky.social gets at one my pet points, which is that EV batteries are lasting much longer in the field than is predicted by (very conservative) models.
"Ignoring water-to-air contaminant emissions in air quality management allows hidden risks to persist"; and, conversely, ignoring the AIRborne transportation of pollutants from rivers (etc) can result in considerable underestimates of the number of people impacted by water-pollution events. 3/3
I think its of more than local signif. Scientifically, its a well documented example of how water pollution doesn't necessarily stay confined within the banks of a river. In this case (as I suspect in others), the pollution can get aerosolized into the air and move far beyond the river itself. 2/2
In April, I pointed out a preprint re: neighborhood AIR pollution north of Tijuana (arising ultimately from polluted stream WATERS miles away) in context of American Rivers naming the TJ River 2nd most endangered river this yr. Final paper is out in Science today. ½ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Interesting article about non-agency scientists who wanted to be of use following SoCal's January 2025 UWI fires. How to contribute/help without being in the way...its always a balancing act. eos.org/features/whe...
& We discuss the urgent question "are we already seeing the climate-enhanced flood regime projected by models or, if not, when will we?" Given California's wild precip (& runoff) variability, the answer to that question is not as straight forward as you probly think, based on recent flood years. 3/3
In this paper, we review current science re: the projected growth of ARs and attendant flood risks in the warming climate, along with the changing state of the Sierra Nevada snowpack and some unexpected details of the historical effects of water mgmt on the Delta's extremest flow conditions. 2/3
A new installment of the State of (California's) Bay-Delta Science 2025 series appeared in the San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science journal this morning, & includes our review paper "Atmospheric Rivers & Flooding in California's changing hydroclimate"! ⅓ escholarship.org/uc/item/1kw1...
Next it’s 2 million acres of Oregon national forests land, and another 56M in 39 other states, under the Administration’s “gun” as they move to rescind the “Roadless Rule”. oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/08/28/t...
Thanks.
Here is a non-paywalled version: wapo.st/3HStnDr
Also paywalled (arg) but…4 new essay questions now included on applications to fill NWS positions. E.g., “How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? …explain how you would help implement them if hired.” JFC!!! www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...
I think ARkStorm2.0 may need to invest in some generativeAI to get its message out. [For nonCalifornians, ARkStorm was a 2010 USGS-led disaster-preparedness scenario to explore/communicate risks of our worst winter storms. ARkStorm2.0 includes more climate change.] www.thetimes.com/world/asia/a...
Unfortunately paywalled…but here’s the story of THAT forecast for Katrina’s arrival in New Orleans 20 years ago. (A forecast didn’t sugar coat.) Objective forecasts from healthy agencies (can) save lives. www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...
@douglewin.bsky.social: "One acre of corn for ethanol = 25,000 miles in a Ford F-150. One acre of solar = 700,000 miles in an F-150 Lightning. That’s the scale of possibility Bill McKibben laid out on the Energy Capital Podcast." #alwaysbecharging www.douglewin.com/p/here-comes...
Marin County’s main water district is entering a new 15-yr water agreement with Sonoma Water. The contract includes support for the agency’s “atmospheric river capture” project, a pipeline to carry Sonoma water to Marin’s Nicassio Reservoir, to boost Marin’s supply. www.marinij.com/2025/08/20/m...
New tech scales way faster than old. Solar went from 100 → 1,000 TWh in 8 years, then doubled again to 2,000 TWh by 2024—in just 3 more years. For each of the last three years, solar was the biggest source of new electricity globally. Nothing else has scaled this fast.
interactive.carbonbrief.org/doe-factchec...
In just 111 pages, DOE’s recent “critical review of climate impacts” report contained well over 100 misleading or false statements/interpretations of the peer-reviewed literature, according to climate scientists including many cited in the report. interactive.carbonbrief.org/doe-factchec...
An aside for a Friday night after a week of disappointments and challenges in the wide world...from 50+ years ago... 'In the next century or the one beyond that, they say, are valleys, pastures, we can meet there in peace if we make it.' Really, don't give in.
Globally, the population directly exposed to wildland fires increased 40%, 2002-2021, despite 26% decline in burned area. Africa is, by far, the global hot spot for this exposure, w/ 85% of global exposures occurring in Africa in that period. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
Justice Jackson’s described new SCOTUS ruling on cases regarding wholesale cancellation of grants: “This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, & this Administration always wins.” www.vox.com/scotus/45886...
...for now. Once the ice is depleted, flows will decline, ultimately even below historical norms.
Himalayan glaciers melting twice as fast, doubling downstream river flows. www.indiatoday.in/environment/...
NASA STEM project intends to bundle time-relevant public-supplied photos of hurricane damage with their own data streams for use by emergency responders. Time-stamped and geotagged images to be shared with emergency responders. abcnews.go.com/US/nasa-pilo...
In huge but typical unintended irony, Trump (of all people) declares “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” as he turns Department of Interior and environmental/public-land laws against new development of solar and wind power. grist.org/energy/trump...
Trump’s anti-renewables policies have commercial Nevada projects looking for ways out of development arrangements “in the pipeline”, even though even its thoroughly GOP governor admits they were needed for mining & AI interests. www.rgj.com/story/news/2...
Historically-dry Beijing, home to 22M people, remains insufficiently prepared for what experts say will be an increasingly wet future. But, with 3 100-yr floods in past dozen yrs, it’s mobilizing to prepare, by expansion of “sponge cities” and ecological approaches. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
Internationally clean-energy companies are turning to ‘parametric’ insurance to cover losses when erratic weather (fomented by climate change) impacts their power production. (Parametric insurance pays rapid compensation when specific weather conditions arise.) www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
An unusually strong summertime #AtmosphericRiver brought AR 3 conditions and heavy rainfall to portions of western Washington last week. #WAwx See our latest quick summary for a brief synopsis of this event: cw3e.ucsd.edu/wp-content/u....
Join us for Building Trust in Health Science: Learning & Leading—Together — a virtual roundtable on September 17, 2:00–3:30 PM ET. NAM will introduce a new collaborative effort focused on strengthening trust in health science—and invite public input on its early objectives and approach.
… "Why we have NASA—is to explore, not to do all of these Earth sciences." 😢😖🤯
"All the climate science & other priorities the last* administration had at NASA, we’re going to move aside & the science we do will be exploration which is the mission of NASA," NASA Administrator Duffy said. ½ futurism.com/the-byte/nas... * How many months & he still doesn’t know their history?
That odd thing that begins “www.science.com” and so on in my post is called a url. Click on it and on the first line of the title of the article you’ll arrive at there is hint re: what you’ve asked. And the beginning of the second sentence defines it. Finding answers is not that hard.
>2100 members of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine (as individuals) plus >700 others have sent a letter to Congress outlining damage the proposed FY26 budget will do to US's global leadership in science. tinyurl.com/mw2yrmwz
Biodiversity in tropical rainforest canopies can be monitored using eDNA in rain throughfall from canopies, collected w/low-cost collectors. Demo detects eDNA from woody & epiphyte plants, mammals, birds, amphibians & insects in Amazon rainforest & nearby plantation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
In a new study, sensors & cameras were operated along roads & in storm drains INSIDE 3 coastal North Carolina communities to study how often flooding—from nuisance to larger—really happens. Answer: A lot more often, & for longer, than the current tide gage network suggests. eos.org/articles/res...
Despite warnings that their actions are illegal, NASA Administrator Duffy & other senior officials have been secretly directing NASA employees to draw up plans ending two major satellite missions that monitor global CO2. (Eos not pulling many punches in this article.) eos.org/research-and...
>2100 members of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine (as individuals) have sent a letter to Congress outlining damage the proposed FY26 budget will do to federal science agencies & other research institutions, & to US's global leadership in science. tinyurl.com/mw2yrmwz
Call for wildlife-friendlier solar farm designs after discovery that solar panel farms can confuse insects, birds and bats in problematic ways. www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/sol... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
There is a livestream of the glacial outburst flood happening in Juneau
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...
@cw3escripps team, led by Jay Cordeira, provides a deep dive re: what went right, wrong, & why, in forecasts (from GPS & ECMWF) of a high-impact atmospheric river that made landfall in Jan 2021. Hint: Getting weather conditions over the North Pacific right is critical! cw3e.ucsd.edu/cw3e-publica...
Scary immigrants all over the place…(Sarcasm emoji)
500 electric vehicle batteries at the end of their lives will soon provide 24MWHrs of energy storage in Texas’ electric grid. 3 more such facilities, bringing total to 100MWHrs, are in the works. insideclimatenews.org/news/3007202...
Another FAFO, in Arctic rivers this time… Data from the six largest Arctic rivers for 20 years shows that they deliver much less of usable (by marine ecosystems) inorganic nitrogen to Arctic Ocean now. Instead, they carry more of the harder-to-use, organic kind. www.earth.com/news/warming...
The L.A. area (including Long Beach & Anaheim) ranks 1st in Western US in stormwater runoff capture potential & 19th out of 2,645 urban areas nationwide. Are “sponge zones” a way to address both flood risks and flood water opportunities? www.latimes.com/world-nation...
A national assmt of Chinese rivers finds streamflow declined in >70% of gages (mostly in north) over the past six decades, due to land use & cover changes, exacerbated by water withdrawals, diversion & regulation. Climate change has tended to increase flows in south. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
Adam Smith, the NOAA scientist behind the Billion Dollar Disaster database forced out by the Trump coup in April, is now working on rebuilding the database for @climatecentral.org.
National Academy is stepping up…
Apology for deleting an add-on remark about this post. I meant it to be a text to chair of Natnl Acad committee that reviewed NCA5 draft a while back, following up on convo we had recently re misuse of NCAs. Misuse is one thing; rewriting them is many steps worse. Deleted post was private communs.
Do we, the authors of past NCAs, get to take our names off of our words, at least? I do not consent to ANY post-facto changes to my massively peer-and public-reviewed contributions to (water chapter) of 2013 NCA.
Last Tuesday Pacific Gas & Electric drew on residential batteries in >100k homes, during peak demand, to power the statewide grid in test to determine power availability therein w/o grid failure. The amount was 535MW, equiv to a large hydro dam or ½ a nuclear plant. www.semafor.com/article/08/0...
Like so many other things, with climate change or regarding climate change, history is not a reliable guide. Climate change changes everything!
Strikes me that, with EXISTING services & systems reducing food waste under MASSIVE attack, arguments whether GHG reduxns by food banks are “new or enhanced” are out of date. We need to reward NEW support cuz US sure won’t & they’ll go away w/o NEW investments/contribs. grist.org/food-and-agr...
And here's a webinar from @AGU.org's strateguc communications team re: how to write impactful op-eds, choose the appropriate outlets and more. email.agu.org/OTg3LUlHVC01... (password Zug4s^Mc )
@AGU.org’s policy team breaks down what this summer's Congressional bills affecting federal funding for science do, how they relate to each other, and how you can take action this August in this webinar from last week. email.agu.org/OTg3LUlHVC01... (password Y8rZ7$S. )
Combining high-resolution atmospheric analysis and global positioning system tracking data, @matthiastschumi.bsky.social and his team explored the role of gravity waves in soaring golden eagles, with results supporting the regular use of these waves. Read more here: doi.org/10.1098/rsif...
Imagine we all drove EVs and then someone came along and proposed an ICE vehicle… Video credit: Nic Cruz Patane (link in Alt text)
www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...
Omg…I have been trying to wrap my head around frightening conversations w some crazily complacent colleagues in recent months…bright people who shd know better. THIS is what I’ve been encountering! “The curse of preventative measures”. Okay, now to come up w a more strategic rxn than a dropped jaw.
The bottom line on EPA's effort to overturn the #endangerment finding? It's purely a political argument cloaked in false, misleading, dishonest scientific language, because actual #climate science unambiguously supports the conclusion greenhouse gases are dangerous to the climate and society.
The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.
NEW: Extraordinary footage has emerged of the huge tsunami that hit Russia’s remote Kamchatka peninsula after the 8.8 magnitude earthquake on July 30th. (🎥 Doni Nikz)
“Visibility hovered around or below 1 km in Fort McMurray, Alberta for most of the day Sunday, with the airport reporting exceptionally low visibility of just 200 metres at 5:00 p.m. local time.” The AQI hit 2242: 10x higher than the “hazardous” level. www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weat...
BTW the author of this excellent piece is @yvonnerc.bsky.social who is—judging from her recent posts and reposts—is a really worthwhile follow! Treat yourself.
Court finds that, while it’s true design pros/engineers are not climatologists, they MUST use available climate data & foresight in projects. Ignoring how weather/climate conditions might evolve over project lifespans may expose firms to claims of negligence. www.victorinsurance.com/us/policyhol...
…all while … www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
US Bureau of Land Management implemented 4 new rules to increase oil-gas drilling on public lands (adding extra yr of “life” to unused leases, preventing updated stipulations to leases & 18-month turnaround on offering leases) WITH NO PUBLIC COMMENT INPUT. insideclimatenews.org/news/0108202...
This article speaks for itself. But I will note that there’s been more than the usual discussion of this travesty by the USEPA among my circle of climate science colleagues. The EPA & DOE seals of approval are meaningless now. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
A suggestion: To get yr head around this loss of US science leadership, check out this book...a history of how science was communicated internationally before WWII, that is, before the US achieved 70yrs of science dominance...only to give it all away this year. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
There are now 2x more beaver ponds on tundra south of Brooks Rg & North Slope than in 2003. New study forecasts that, with warming, beavers will spread onto North Slope, adding to transformation of tundra & permafrost. www.science.org/content/arti... iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
A 15% increase in US solar-power generation is associated with a reduction of 8.54M metric tons/yr in CO2 emissions, >12% of the yearly target of 69 MMT CO2 reductions needed to cut CO2 emissions by 1380 MMT in 20 years. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
High-res remote sensing can now be used to track/map physiological drought responses in European ecosystems via sensing of ET, H2O content, & C-regulation responses. Different ecosystems are showing divergent responses suggesting different physiological strategies. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Computer vision method of "canny edge detection" deployed identify abrupt climate shifts in CMIP6 climate projections. Always a difficult needle-in-haystack problem, but increasingly likely on our warming planet. eos.org/research-spo... agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
Making climate science more agri-actionable: Expressing forecasts in impact terms (via co-production), respecting decision calendars, addressing user priorities/concerns, designing to accomodate user capacities, planning for when the info is wrong. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
European governments are breaking their dependence on scientific data the United States used to make freely available, ramping up their data collection systems to monitor climate change & weather extremes. Now we’re just giving away our leadership positions. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
Lots of legal & economic hitches & benefits go into converting unused farm lands to solar panels in California. It’s not as straightforward as you might imagine. (NB: Recall the State of California is VERY MUCH in the selling & supplying of irrigation water BUSINESS.) www.sacbee.com/opinion/edit...
Breaking: NSF is suspending roughly 300 grants with UCLA, following a DOJ finding on Tuesday that the university violated Title VI by "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students."
The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund has been especially hard at it since well before January 20th, defending and protecting scientists and science. This is a nonprofit well worth knowing and supporting in today's political climate. mailchi.mp/csldf/2025-j...
The Data Foundation, as well as AGU & others, are fundraising for initiatives to facilitate & coordinate efforts among nonprofits, technical experts, & companies to improve the accuracy & accessibility of climate information. www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/25/1...
The UCDavis Tahoe Environmental Research Center is looking to hire a Chemistry Lab Manager, Postdoc Fellows, and nonUC Student Assistants! Great place and great opportunity! (NB: pretty short application deadlines) tahoe.ucdavis.edu/opportunities
Dr. Yuan Yang, @CW3EScripps, has led numerous collaborators in developing public ML-based reach‐level daily (& 3-hourly) river-discharge datasets (GRADES-hydroDL) for ~3M reaches globally, 1980-2024. cw3e.ucsd.edu/cw3e-publica... www.reachhydro.org/home/records...
AtmosphericRiverRecon, a @CW3EScripps-led program w/NOAA & USAirForce, had been designated an 'anchor project' by WCRP's GPEX initiative, to coordinate global field campaigns. An expanded ARRecon--the Global AR Recon Program Demonstration--will happen in Jan/Feb 2026. cw3e.ucsd.edu/ar-recon-pro...
Why not put solar farms in places already disturbed that aren’t being used otherwise—especially defunct open-pit mines w/ their roads & grid connections? New global study finds 61.8K mines that together cover 47.9K km2, enough for 4,764 TWh/yr of solar. www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/07/from...
>2000 pages of internal public-agency records chart years-long efforts & plans by cabal of 10 law-enforcement agencies, led by FBI, to squelch eco-monitoring & protests (being cast by FBI as eco terror) at Thacker Pass Li mine in NV. Not paranoia when it’s real. www.rgj.com/story/news/2...
First step is to check out the many many starter lists(packs). As you follow some of those regulars, others will notice and follow you, and it multiplies pretty quickly.
Record wildfires in 2024 underscore how countries like Bolivia are caught in a trap: The extractive path (agribusiness, promoted by national government, in this case) to development is now directly threatening the people due to climate crisis. insideclimatenews.org/news/2607202...
Side bar: Anticipation of this request was essentially a co-equal (with some nasty recent droughts) but wonkier (& thus less talked about) motivation for starting the current Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO) evaluations and then implementations at Russian R reservoirs a decade ago.
Pacific Gas & Electric has submitted a request to federal regulators to dismantle two aged dams & no-longer profitable Potter Valley hydroelectric system on Eel River that (nonetheless) still provides water for >600k people. ½ www.sfchronicle.com/climate/arti...
Global analysis of GRACE data since 2002 shows continents (all land excluding Greenland & Antarctica) have undergone unprecedented rates of drying & the areas experiencing drying are increasing by about 2x the size of California per year. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Nature sounds are often sampled in musical tracks (and films) of all genres. A movement is building to treat nature as a collaborator deserving of credit & compensation, with resulting revenue put toward conservation or stewardship of habitats providing the sounds. grist.org/looking-forw...
eos.org/research-and...
“The Forest Service will phase out the nine Regional Offices over the next year.” mountainjournal.org/forest-servi...
So, we (any informed, caring people) are officially on the right side of global law and the future (unanimously for the court)..NOW, we'll have to see how much actual impact this ruling can have in today's world. www.euronews.com/green/2025/0...