In case it wasn't clear what this is about, because CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere (owing to its long atmospheric lifetime) to a very good approximation, the amount of warming caused is linear in cumulative emissions. The linearity also makes it rigorously possible to apportion guilt.

So disappointed in Labour.

Very proud of my student Collin Cherubim for his discovery of an atmosphere on the habitable-zone exoplanet LHS 1140 b! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/s...

If you would like to work with me at MIT, please consider applying for a 51 Peg b fellowship. Applications are now open, closing Oct. 1 www.hsfoundation.org/programs/sci...

A good postdoc opportunity with Renyu at Rutgers jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/277...

Composer @robertlaidlow.bsky.social has a four-star review in The Guardian today, praising an album of the Piatti Quartet playing his compositions. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

9 times out of 10 the people shaking their pompoms for AI development, gas-powered data centers be damned, are the same people who are bullish on solar geoengineering by private companies for profit. But it's all good because it's all growth and innovation — our heaven and earth forever amen.

Brilliant planet discovery from my Oxoplanet friends and colleagues - a cool faint planet hiding in images of the Beta Pic system. Starring our wonderful pre-doc Leyla Iskandaril amongst others. 🔭 🧪

#oxford #folk #sessions: the very busy 3rd week of the month is upon us, so it's the Oxford Blue today, Lamb&Flag on Sunday and Eurosession at the Half Moon on Monday ...

Heat pump installations in the US are edging out fossil fuel systems (and non-reversible a/c), despite the Trump administrations love affair with fossil fuels grist.org/energy/the-u... But why is the U.K. , which has netZero enshrined in law, doing so badly by comparison? ...

Carbon capture and storage is helping fossil fuel companies dump risk onto the public thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...

My colleague Myles Allen is at least in agreement with @georgemonbiot.bsky.social that carbon capture should be paid for by fossil-fuel producers, not the public. However, Myles doesn't distinguish in his letter between CCS at power plants and direct air capture. The former is a technology whose

A very good example of why we need coordinated wartime-scale action👇 It’s not acceptable to leave grid expansion to market forces. We didn’t do so with the mobilisation for WW2. The gov should mandate it. The result is that UK will have to import even more highly polluting LNG from USA.

The height of absurdity! A large UK solar farm forced to shut down because the grid couldn't handle the power, and just at a time when electricity demand is high because of the heat wave. www.theguardian.com/environment/... And I infer all those folks who invested in this will have to pay for

I've seen reports here of this EnergyDome CO2 battery being deployed in Ireland energydome.com/co2-battery/ . At first I wondered what the advantages of using CO2 as the working fluid were, when air would be cheaper, but I read their technical description, and the scheme relies

e-Bikes and cargo bikes are an important part of the Oxford transportation mix, but there is a shortage of secure parking for these targets for theft. My sympathies for Layla. Layla is my MP, and a very good one. I'm glad to see her on Bluesky.

The permo-triassic is the answer to "what happens if we never stop burning fossil fuels" (and never run out, because we learn to tap non-conventional organic C deposits). However, this study is about the kill mechanism, not the cause itself. The cause was most probably a massive increase of CO2,

In a sense, she was the George Washington Carver of the potato. A remarkable scientist, and a pioneer of starch chemistry.

While reminding myself of the story of Kullervo (from the Finnish Epic Kalevala) I came across this pithy advice that almost seems it could be directed at Trump. (Runo 36) Kullervo's mother: "Do not go to this great war To the clashing of the sword blades He who goes to war on purpose ...

This is the most FUCKED up reason to have approved this. As I keep saying, the US FCC is not a good global citizen. They are way too chummy with industry partners, and these kinds of approvals do not take into account global communities. Write to your legislators to put the pressure on.

Long ago, I dropped my Amazon Prime subscription, and since have been working hard to scrub any reliance on Amazon from my life. But sometimes, there is music hard to find (for purchase not streaming) anywhere else. In particular, yesterday I was looking for a CD of one of the great #tango ...

Another part of the data centre scam: If data centres connect to the grid, and force an increase in fossil gas fueled electricity production, then the way electricity pricing works it keeps enough fossil gas in the supply that it controls the marginal price of production -- which drives up the...

In today's Guardian @georgemonbiot.bsky.social forcefully calls out the billions about to be squandered on speculative unworkable CCS schemes in the UK, paid for largely by UK taxpayers and energy consumers. The only ones who benefit from these schemes are fossil fuel companies, since CCS

Big tech’s lofty climate goals wrecked by energy-hungry #AI - Net-zero pledges of Google and Amazon slip out of reach, and struggling Meta makes frantic moves #climatecrisis www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

This document, submitted to a Parliamentary hearing on UK science funding, has a cogent description of the problems with the ARIA funding model. committees.parliament.uk/writtenevide... It specifically calls out ARIA's questionable funding of geoengineering research including outdoor field trials

More great work from an Oxford PCDgroup alum. Namrah has been doing great work continuing her ideas on convection in planetary atmospheres, in addition to this outstanding mission design work.

#geoengineering The UK government, specifically Department of Energy Security and Net Zero does not understand the SRM (Solar Radiation Modification) research it is funding through ARIA's "Exploring Climate Cooling" programme. This FOI request response ico.org.uk/media2/gvfal... ...

The shortcomings of Bluesky are very minor compared to the Bad Place, but there is still a lot of room for improvement here. One highly inconvenient thing is that posts from people I'm following appear in my Discover feed as well as my Following feed. This is really pointless, since I wind up

Congratulations to Luke Parker (@luke-parker.bsky.social) on his talk “Tracing cloud condensation and formation histories across the giant planet population with observations of silicon chemistry” at #Exo6!

Congratulations to Prof Jayne Birkby (@jaynebirkby.bsky.social) on her talk “FROM GAS GIANTS TO ROCKY WORLDS: ADVANCES FROM HIGH RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY OF EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES” at #Exo6!

This is an example of the sort of witless, pointless food-porn post that I routinely and reflexivly block. I'm as much interested in food as the next person, but there are just too many of these, and they convey no useful information. Why should anybody care that you ate hot dogs last night?

BTW, I'm not at Exo6 myself. Just got back from MIT, and couldn't face a big meeting because a lot of small workshops and summer schools are coming up. But I've enjoyed following these posts. My thanks to whoever is doing the microblogging.

Congratulations to Prof Tad Komacek (@tadkomacek.bsky.social) on his poster presentation at #Exo6!

Congratulations to Dr Martha Mak on her poster presentation at #Exo6!

Go Mitch! Another PCDgroup member.

Another great contribution from the Oxford PCDgroup.

I'll add my congratulations to some fine work by my former doctoral student Ryan Boukrouche. Happy to see this continuation of the line of work he established in his thesis.

Supreme Court trashes protections against big money interference in elections in the name of "free speech", while giving a free pass to Trump's actions stomping on real speech by real people. The free speech "absolutists" are very selective when it comes to who is free to speak.

This article has a very cogent takedown of the "... but we're only 1% of emissions" sound bite, often used to discourage net zero policies. You could take it further than just aggregating emissions by countries, since if you look at emissions per person, they are always a tiny fraction of the ...

Stirling Air engine. The rotor is moving so fast you can't see it moving, but you can hear it, and see the flashing light powered by the itty bitty generator it runs. If you extinguish the flame and crank the rotor instead, it acts as a heat pump. The working fluid is plain old air.

"Net zero is not an arbitrary slogan. Rather, it is dictated by the laws of physics." Can't repeat that too much, or too loudly. Thanks, Sir Brian!

Great opportunities here!

What About GEOMIP? One of the themes of our recent Guardian piece on geoengineering www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... is that would-be geoengineers are charging full-speed ahead to develop the technology for deployment, before any of the really serious scientific questions ...

This discussion puts its finger squarely on one of the two thorniest issues of geoengineering - namely that, to succeed, it would require multidecadal stable and rational governance of the countries and entities involved. How's that going, these days?

Good to see the word getting spread. One of the big problems right now is that there is so little awareness amongst the public of just what it would mean to live in a world kept on life support . The white sky that would replace our clear blue skies would be a daily reminder of the peril.

They say "follow the money" for a reason

JD Vance is not a Catholic. He should be exocommunicated www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Our latest Guardian piece on the dangers of the geoengineering juggernaut. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... . And this time, it's not just Mike Mann and me. The world-leading climate scientists Valerie Masson-Delmotte and Julia Slingo FRS DBE have added their keen insights.

Magma Oceans Everywhere! But for Uranus and Neptune, we won't really know much about the interior untll we get a Juno-type mission there.

Calling all Scots in Boston for the World Cup! I hear a lot of bars are running out of beer, but if you're still around this Sunday there's a rollicking good Scottish session 12-3 at McCarthy's near Porter Square, with yours truly on the button box, but also some amazing fiddles. And beer a'plenty.