My latest column for the Chronicle of Higher Ed is now live. It's an argument for including AI-critical voices in campus conversations and policymaking workgroups, and I'm proud to get this dissenting piece into the mainstream genAI/higher ed discourse. Please read and share if you're so inclined 🙂

Just like NOAA provides weather info for communities, NOAA should provide free, credible, & actionable information about a range climate impacts. For some climate hazards, they do. But not yet for future rainfall. Our new paper provides a workaround until they do. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

I'm very excited and honored to lead this year's Water Resources Management practicum @uwmadison.bsky.social on the 60th anniversary of this excellent MS program nelson.wisc.edu/the-commons/...

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

This piece from @vauhinivara.bsky.social is an object example of what journalists should be doing with these questions unlike the Hard Fork infomercialists. (Might need to sign in to read.) www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Wonderful article about my friend and colleague @creekthinker.bsky.social , her research, and her amazing students! news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-s...

Good news: bipartisan legislation to reauthorize Sea Grant programs around the country (including the Great Lake states), due to the high value generated compared to the cost ecomagazine.com/news/policy/...

Annual flood series for the Milwaukee River at Milwaukee, just downstream of I-43 bridge, 1915-2023. Top of the scale is 20,000 cfs, flood of record was 18,200 cfs. At 2:30 AM this morning it was at 19700 cfs, at 9AM, 19300 cfs, off-scale (too high for the gage?) in between.

Here’s the USGS chart.

The official state 24-hour rainfall record is 11.72” from Mellon in 1946. It will have to be decided if the MPS - Madison High School gauge/rain total gets investigated for a possible new record.

Saturday and Sunday August 9-10 are Critical Weather Days for Wisconet because of the Moderate Risk (Level 3/4) of Excessive Rainfall. Stay weather aware this weekend and don't attempt to drive through flooded roadways. 57% of flood fatalities occur on moderate/high risk days.

Counterpoint: no we don't.

Nothing like a Friday afternoon to drop a big graphics projects! If you're still online, check out our new @propublica.org story "The Drying Planet" -- you'll learn that groundwater depletion has become a bigger & bigger part of sea level rise (among other things!) www.propublica.org/article/wate...

Today, the AAUP released a new report, "Artificial Intelligence & Academic Professions." The report calls for policies that prioritize economic security, faculty working & student learning conditions as AI tech accelerates. www.aaup.org/news/new-rep... 🧵1/9

Back on track: Scientists restart work on next-gen rainfall project to defend against worsening flooding #DefendDemocracy #TeamTrident floridatrident.org/back-on-trac...

The discourse surrounding precipitation changes in a warming climate (both public discussion and even scientific one at times) is complicated by widespread conflation of changes in averages vs extremes (and also actual vs *potential* evaporation/evaporative demand). [Thread]

Really proud of this piece pushing back against renewed enthusiasm for “land sparing” (i.e. industrial ag boosterism), written with some brilliant colleagues. Check it out!

The 28th st station is built on top of an ancient stream that drains the slightly higher ground to the east. (1865 Viele map via davidrumsey.com)

#Flood modelers: lots of chatter RE soil profiles in "flash flood alley". Do we really think floods would have been meaningfully different if you dropped that much rain on those hills, but they had more/deeper topsoils? Of course the effect is not zero, but not convinced it's big.

It's the last mile stuff that we really have to work on. How do we make sure that people are getting the warnings (including making sure they have emergency alerts turned on) and to respond appropriately to the warnings (don't just ignore it!). www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/t...

Why #Texas Hill Country, where a devastating flood killed dozens, is one of the deadliest places in the US for flash flooding theconversation.com/why-texas-hi... via @us.theconversation.com #science

Absolutely insane hydrograph. Storm over central TX, Guadalupe river cresting over 34' when it was 3' just hours earlier. Friends have sent images/videos and it is wild. Stay safe out there y'all

NEW PAPER ALERT! We looked at the impact of increasing and decreasing riparian shading on a Wisconsin trout stream - accounting for the observed concurrent change in stream width - using a process-based model

Great post from project colleagues on the nuanced role of modeling in planning for the future. fewscapes.wisc.edu/blog/can-mod... @monicagturner.bsky.social

Wild how the Fed chair saying that *entire regions of the United States* won’t be able to get a mortgage in the next decade barely registered as a news event

Rainfall can vary significantly over short distances, as these maps from our Wisconet data and CoCoRaHS show. Even with dense measurement networks, you can't capture all of the variability, but you can do better by continuing to collect more measurements. Want to help? Join CoCoRaHS!

FL homeowners are "sweating their assets" with HELOCs, hoping to beat the "Great Repricing" of climate risk. There's rising mortgage distress. Without FEMA, the state faces tough financial strain. Not just Florida's problem, but a national economic threat. susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/a-perfect-...

Vernon County removes first dam as local officials wait for federal funding. Federal officials have recommended removing nearly 2 dozen flood-control dams in the region. But Vernon County is pursuing other ways to remove the high-risk structures.

I'm a bit late to notice it from last February...but this is a really important Perspective piece from @rlmuenich.bsky.social et al. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

This is very interesting work. It's worth noting that Bill Gartner of UW Madison Geography has been studying and mapping raised beds like this across Wisconsin for decades. He has also done lots of work with the College of the Menominee Nation on reconstruction of ancient agricultural sites.

I had a great conversation with Sydney Widell of the Coon Creek Community Watershed Council, a true grassroots organization doing some great work with land & water management in the Driftless Area. Excited to join their meeting next week! @uncpress.bsky.social

Excellent interview with @joshuanygren.bsky.social on his amazing new book and connections with the Coon Creek Watershed. cooncreekwatershed.org/cccwc-june-m...

How Do We Know What We Grow? Interrogating the Datafication of Agricultural Landscapes in the United States doi.org/10.1002/sea2...

Note : Floodplain mapping

Without indirect costs from agencies like the NIH, potentially life-saving research would become slower and less ambitious. Here is an incredible explainer about "indirects" from @uwmadison.bsky.social science writer @will-cushman.bsky.social and art director Danielle Lamberson Philipp. 🧪

NEW: Researchers have created the most complete map of the world’s rivers ever made offering a major leap forward for flood prediction, climate risk planning, and water resource management in a warming world. ⬇️ www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-05...

Yikes!

Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice,” according to an email seen by Nature. https://go.nature.com/44Ugf9V

UW-Madison international students live in fear, court records reveal captimes.com/news/educati...

Ecologically informed solar enables a sustainable energy transition in US croplands www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Gaps in Water Quality Modeling of Hydrologic Systems www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/17...

Important new review on flood attenuation impacts of river network conveyance characteristics: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Congrats @devonkerins.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/hyp.... Flat, rainy sites (more silty/clayey soils): flashier streamflow + more sensitive to dynamic storage; Snowy sites (coarse sandy soils): less flashy streamflow, lower dynamic storage, lower sensitivity to storage, + more deeper flow.

I've already had two federal grants terminated and face a 33% pay cut due to future terminations. It's painful, but not as painful as the conversations I'm having every day with brilliant trainees in graduate school and postdoctoral positions who see little future for themselves in US science.

WI: Bipartisan bill backs grazing practices that benefit water quality and livestock Bill would provide grants of up to $40K for farmers to use rotational grazing practices www.wpr.org/news/biparti...

Oh, it definitely has to be this one! theonion.com/report-every...

The contempt is hard to stomach. University research is not a hobby. It's work--work our country values as important to improving Americans' health, contributing to the economy, maintaining scientific supremacy. 'Entitlement' sure hits wrong.

New review paper out on fluvial flood reduction 🌊 from nature-based solutions (NBS) 🏞 🌳led by Marina Howarth w/ Alfonso Mejía & @drericasmithwick.bsky.social #flooding #ecosystemservices #naturebasedsolutions wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Another dataset I like and have used extensively is streamflow and other river data from USGS. I don't know if another country has so much of their data online and accessible, but I've tried to get data for France in the past and it was not easy.