Shoutout to Dmitri Kalashnikov, John Abatzoglou, Nicholas Nauslar, Daniel Swain, Danielle Touma and Deepti Singh for their fantastic study of California dry lightning patterns that helped with forecast confidence ahead of today’s lightning siege and associated wildfires.

Engrossing meeting of the minds at the workshop this week. Nine creative yet plausible storylines were developed and a whole range of new cxns made. Thanks again to all who attended, and especially those who made it happen. We're excited to see what this format & these ideas can catalyze!

Scoop: The U.S. billion-dollar disaster database is set to return this fall over at @climatecentral.org. They've hired the former NOAA scientist who ran the project for 10+ years www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I read EPA’s 302-page proposal to nuke the endangered endangerment finding so that you don’t have to, and wrote about what the insanity all means for @climateconnections.bsky.social. Thanks to @gregdotson.bsky.social, @hausfath.bsky.social, @michaelemann.bsky.social for the input. Article & 🧵(1/14):

Every country is warming. Every country is experiencing more extreme weather events because of climate change, mainly caused by burning fossil fuels. www.ShowYourStripes.info Time to #ShowYourStripes and start climate conversations to prompt actions to reduce emissions, personally & collectively.

Extreme heat is the most deadly weather event in the US. Images are critical pieces of any news story — they draw readers in and help to communicate the story itself. However, publications continue to publish photos that fail to convey the severity and danger of extreme heat.

Happening now! Tune-in.

Question from a livestream viewer: “How many lives are collectively impacted by [NOAA's] monitoring and rapid response work.” John Cortinas: “I don’t have any exact numbers, but I would probably start by saying the entire population of the United States…"

Federal weather & climate science is under threat. Starting TODAY at 3:00 PM ET, join a coalition of scientists--including AMS leaders--for a 100-hour livestream. Learn what federal science does for you, ask questions, and help build awareness to "Save Our Forecasts": wclivestream.com

Our 2024 climate chronicles have just been published! Check out the Collection: www.nature.com/collections/... Thread below details all articles and their take-home messages. [1/n]

Jha et al. assess 2024 extreme land heat, finding: - Many record-shattering events globally - >150 heatwave days in large swathes of S. America www.nature.com/articles/s43... (rdcu.be/ehobs) @roshanjha.bsky.social, @climatechirper.bsky.social per.bsky.social, @sarahinscience.bsky.social [8/n]

Climate change continued to have unpredictable impacts on wildfire in 2024. Unexpected shifts, like the Americas producing 40% of C emissions (normally it's <25%), and anomalous events, like the fatal Feb '24 Chile fire or the Pantanal wetlands burning, occur more often.

I'm devastated and heartbroken. Staff at the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) got the ax. Most likely means the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6) is also cooked. USGCRP was the glue across the Federal family on all things climate - reducing duplication and making efficiencies.

Come join us this summer in Portland, OR for a workshop on compounding and cascading risks.

This is a really good article that clearly connects the firing of hazard scientists to the ability of emergency managers to be able to do their jobs. www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

An integrated, interactive, and extensible platform for detecting and visualizing compound events. Our new paper in Scientific Data is now available: doi.org/10.1038/s415.... Thanks to my coauthors Mingfang Ting, @kornhuber.bsky.social, Radley M. Horton, Yaping Yang, and Yelin Jiang!

I don’t think a lot of people outside science understand the symbiotic relationship we have between public, private, and educational sectors. We all lean on each other for help, support, and R&D. In most cases, we aren’t competing so much as all rowing different boats in the same direction.

This hurts new and early career investigators (like me) the hardest. Most of us finished our postdocs & started our labs during the COVID-19 pandemic with shutdowns and supply issues at that time. Now we’re being hit with ::all of this:: www.science.org/content/arti...

I have written a short statement responding to mass firings today of #NOAA / National Weather Service (#NWS) staff (which were concentrated among recent hires as well as highly experienced staff who had recently been promoted). Please see below screenshot & below for full text.

New work with Dimitr Kalashnikov, Deepti Singh (@climatechirper.bsky.social) and Mingfang Ting! We demonstrate that record low soil moisture and global warming were major contributors to a record breaking heatwave in Mexico+Texas in 2023 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A statement I must make:

Out today in @globalchangebio.bsky.social is our (brief!) rapid-response piece on the broader context surrounding the January 2025 Southern California wildfires & relevance of wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash to fire both locally and globally on a warming Earth. [1/8] onlinelibrary.wiley....

Thanks to @weatherwest.bsky.social for his leadership on this paper as well as his sustained efforts to inform communities, media, and fellow scientists. His extensive outreach during the current wildfire situation in LA and other disasters provides valuable and timely information to so many people!

Also from #NCA5: "Climate change is leading to larger and more severe wildfires in the western US, bringing acute and chronic impacts both near and far from the flames. Wildfires have significant public health, socioeconomic, and ecological implications..." nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/focu...

If you're interested, you can find a summary of the latest research on wildfire and climate change in the US here: nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/

"Hydroclimate volatility on a warming Earth" by @weatherwest.bsky.social, @climate-guy.bsky.social, @manuelaibrunner.bsky.social, @climatechirper.bsky.social et al. nature.com/articles/s43... Global-averaged subseasonal & interannual whiplash have increased 31–66% & 8–31% since the mid-20thC

Here's the reality about the #LAFires this week: this isn't the first time ANY of these places have burned. Not even close. In 2018, we mapped CA fire history to look at fire frequency across SoCal. Santa Monica Mtns area burns more than anywhere else -- up to once per decade in a given spot. 🧵

Here's my just published op-ed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the fires, #water, #climate, and scientific misinformation: thebulletin.org/2025/01/spre...

Research Fellowship Opportunities at Project Drawdown! Here are some great opportunities to work on the front lines of climate solutions. Please pass along to your colleagues. drawdown.org/careers/rese...

🍎New paper on compounding climate risks to high-value tree fruit production in the U.S, led by graduate student Shawn Preston. We examine climate metrics specific to the phenology of apples 🍎 but findings are relevant for similar tree fruit. doi.org/10.1088/1748... via @IOPenvironment

Thanks Kelly. Sorry to anyone who was bothered by the impersonator

We are not investing enough in updates to historical climate datasets. The pipeline from data rescue efforts and improvements in understanding of biases needs more resources.

⚡New paper on predicting #lightning 🌩️ in the western US using CNNs with @dmitri-climate.bsky.social @zacklabe.com @climate-guy.bsky.social and others. Key finding: CNN are quite skillful at predicting lightning here. We are using these to develop projections of lightning-ignited #wildfires🔥.