Acacia Pepler
@acaciapepler.bsky.social
Climate scientist interested in how weather systems and their impacts are changing in a changing climate
As someone who has long studied East Coast Lows, it was a lovely morning to finally visit Nobbys Beach #CA2026
Respect and applause to @andrewkingclimate.bsky.social, @alexborowiak.bsky.social, Ruchit Kulkarni, @drkimclimate.bsky.social, @taimoorsohail.bsky.social, Gen Tolhurst, & Anna Zehrung for this piece on making climate science more inclusive for LGBTQIA+ scientists 🌈 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Increasing LGBTQIA+ inclusion in climate science
Nature Climate Change - LGBTQIA+ climate scientists have long encountered oppression and discrimination across society and in the workplace. We suggest specific actions, which need to be supported...
nature.com
We are pleased to announce that abstract submissions are now open for the Convection-Permitting Modelling Workshop 2027, to be held at UNSW Sydney, Australia, from 1–4 February 2027, with additional side events on 5 February 2027. unsw.to/cpm2027
Convection-Permitting Modelling Workshop 2027
unsw.to
🚨Update: Our analysis of global APC expenditure has now been expanded to cover more publishers (7 -> 14) and more years (2019-2025). We estimate $15B in APCs paid over seven years, $3.7B in 2025 alone. Elsevier crosses the $1B threshold by itself in 2025. arxiv.org/abs/2608.16322 #ScholComm
Eric Schares@eschares.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨 Preprint! We combine our recent open dataset of #APC prices with the article counts per journal-year from #OpenAlex to estimate how much the academic community has paid in APCs over the last 5 years. A. $8.349 billion ($8.968 B in 2023 USD) $2.5B in 2023 alone. arxiv.org/abs/2407.16551 #metasci
New post this week: early findings from a study about how academics use GenAI that offers crucial insight into the emotional aspects of engaging with it, by @neilselwyn.bsky.social and colleagues: researchwhisperer.org/2026/07/21/a... #academicsky #highered #genAI
Academic (mis)uses of GenAI
This second post by Neil Selwyn and his collaborators shares some of the preliminary results from their research survey, which was discussed in an RW post earlier this year ‘Academics’ …
researchwhisperer.org
13. Hence our dismal conclusion: rather than finding that LLMs free us to do a better job of what we were doing before they came along, they shift scientific incentives (and the playing field of academic competition) in ways that compel us to do more and more, faster and faster, less and less well.
Moving this discussion out of Gavin's replies. NOAA is about to update their precip frequency atlas to account for global warming non-stationarity (more rain!) In practice, what difference might that make to infrastructure design, insurance, legal compliance, etc? DISCUSS!
Cristi Proistosescu@cristiproist.bsky.social · 4mo agoAnother important point is that NOAA should be releasing Atlas 15 (modulo Dept of Commerce shenanigans) soon. Atlas 15 does allow for non-stationarity in precipitation distributions, for both current and past precip (Volume 1) and future precept (Volume 2) water.noaa.gov/about/atlas15
“Snow coverage in Australia is in long-term decline due to increasing temperatures caused by climate change, data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows. “ www.smh.com.au/environment/...
‘Frustrating start’ to ski season as climate change and El Nino weather pattern converge
Resort operators in NSW and Victoria insist the muddy start to the season is not unusual and does not suggest coverage will remain low.
smh.com.au
Bringing so-called ‘negative’ results into interactive open access #publications with the new #EGU manuscript formats: LESSONS (Limitations, Errors, Surprises, Shortcomings and Opportunities for New Science)! Find out more: egu.eu/3M3CH1 📸 Debayan Chatterjee on imaggeo.egu.eu
A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines
As someone who cares about climate and the environment, it's easy to feel cynical about the future. As an antidote, I highly recommend When There Are Wolves Again, a fantastic book which shows how incremental steps really could lead to a better world in our lifetimes ❤️
Check out our new paper that shows the unusually warm East Australian Current in early 2022 contributes to the extreme flooding rainfall occurring further south than it would have otherwise doi.org/10.1007/s007... 🧪 @ccrc.bsky.social
Effects of high local sea surface temperature on the extreme rainfall over the eastern coast of Australia in February 2022 - Theoretical and Applied Climatology
Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Record-breaking extreme rainfall impacted Australia’s east coast from February to April 2022, causing severe flooding across the region. To explore the...
doi.org
Do you have the sense that summers feel different than when you were younger? That they start quickly, and remain intense until the fall? You’re not wrong. (thread)
You can set your watch to autumn headlines declaring a catastrophic El Niño or La Niña. In this article, I throw a bucket of cold water on the heated headlines and reflect on why autumn forecasts of Nino3.4 are to be read with caution. theconversation.com/why-the-phra...
Why the phrase “Super El Nino” makes Australian climate scientists roll their eyes
Media reports have suggested a “super” El Niño is looming. The problem is, these autumn forecasts are notoriously unreliable.
theconversation.com
New APRA insurance vulnerability report shows 25% of Aus households may have no home insurance by 2050; one million households more than today. That’s ~40,000 households losing insurance protection every year for 25 years. Biggest cause: more climate change extremes www.apra.gov.au/mind-gap-an-...
This work (led by our PhD student Aditya Deshmukh) shows that if a series of recent extreme East Coast Lows (off Australia's east coast) were to occur in a warmer climate they would not produce higher peak wave heights - good news for the region agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
Extreme Coastal Waves Due To Australian East Coast Lows in a Warming Climate
Extreme coastal waves from 12 historically significant East Coast Lows simulated in a warming climate Modest decrease in nearshore wave height, wave period and cumulative wave power projected alo...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
After a busy week of inspiring science and socialising in nipaluna/Hobart, it's nice to finally rest on the couch with the cats. #AMOS2026 was fantastic as always, one of my favourite weeks of the year! @amosupdates.bsky.social
It took a loooooong time but it's finally out! We argue that the winter storm track isn't actually "shifting south". Rather, the cool season drying in southeast Australia is linked to a weakening of the northern edge (while the core stays put & intensifies). link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Is the Australian storm track shifting south? - Climate Dynamics
Climate Dynamics - Cool season rainfall has declined in recent decades in many areas of the southern hemisphere subtropics and midlatitudes including parts of southern Australia. This has been...
link.springer.com
Great to be in sunny Hobart in lutruwita/Tasmania for the @amosupdates.bsky.social 2026 meeting. Here’s the gorgeous view from kunanyi/Mt Wellington yesterday. The very apt #AMOS2026 conference theme is “southern skies, southern oceans: science on the edge”.
I know it’s intentional but we should stop calling everything AI, lumping useful machine learning techniques for science with large language models that tech companies are trying to cram into everything.
AFP News Agency@en.afp.com · 9mo agoAI to track icebergs adrift at sea. British scientists say a world-first AI tool to catalogue and track icebergs as they break apart into smaller chunks could fill a "major blind spot" in predicting climate change u.afp.com/S2sA
If you're interested in how extratropical lows are changing in Australia as the world warms, there's a short summary of some recent research on the BoM website: www.bom.gov.au/news-and-med...
bom.gov.au
And I made a little web app where you can go and download monthly precipitation time series data from your location of choice (as long as it's in Australia) wateriso-aus.shinyapps.io/apic/
Australian precipitation isotope calculator
wateriso-aus.shinyapps.io
Dr Micha Campbell@michcampbell.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 10mo agoAustralians interested in precipitation isotopes will be thrilled to see this time-resolved isoscape published by @raindrop-herder.bsky.social #isotopes #rainfallIsotopes #Australia #Climate https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/30/289/2026/hess-30-289-2026.pdf
"Observations show that across the globe, the heaviest daily rainfall events are averaging about 8 or 9 per cent more rain today than before the pre-industrial era" www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...
As the world warms, extreme rain events are coming hard and fast
When it comes to extreme rainfall, it's hard for climate scientists to say what's natural and what's caused by climate change, but they do know the most extreme events are dropping more rain, more oft...
abc.net.au
One small highlight of 2025: I managed to read 133 books, my highest total since 2016 (not counting all the books read to children). Mostly SFF of course! I suspect I'll read fewer next year, as it feels like time to reread LotR.
Given how much money we have to pay journals to publish papers, you would think they could at least manage to hire support staff with reading comprehension or customer support who actually answer emails *grumble mutter whinge*
Looking for postdoc positions in the UK studying weather extremes? Two jobs with deadline 4th Jan: Historical windstorms, working with two insurance companies: jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... Storylines of extreme events, as part of a European collaboration: jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
Research Scientist in Historical Windstorms:Whiteknights Reading UK
Full time, fixed term contract (up to 36 months)
jobs.reading.ac.uk
Wrote this ages ago, still relevant www.scientificamerican.com/blog/hot-pla...
Why I Won't Debate Science
Once you put established facts about the world up for argument, you’ve already lost
scientificamerican.com
Gavin Schmidt@climateofgavin.bsky.social · 11mo agoThere was a vogue for climate debates along these same lines a decade or so back. And for evolution/creationism before that. With very few exceptions, these formats are stacked against the mainstream position. I recommend not doing them (and yes, I speak from experience).