It took us about six generations to warm Earth by 1.4 degrees C. On our present course, we will at least double that in six more generations. And then it will take hundreds of generations to cool back down. justdean.substack.com/p/six-genera...
deanrovang.bsky.social
@deanrovang.bsky.social
Retired research engineer from Sandia National Laboratories. Interested in climate change, the energy transition, and science — with a focus on progress and curiosity. Substack: https://justdean.substack.com
@pik-potsdam.bsky.social I thought you might appreciate the use of the results from your paper in my latest Substack open.substack.com/pub/justdean...
Climate Sensitivity: The Most Contestable Number
It attracts argument because it can be argued, not because it determines urgency.
open.substack.com
What's going on in this graph? A lot... 66 million years of paleoclimate records, modern climate records, and model results from AR6 and AR7 all combined on one chart.
Professor Rahmstorf, I thought you might appreciate seeing the results from your latest paper combined with paleoclimate records, modern records, and the Medium scenario from FaIR for AR7 combined on a single plot. justdean.substack.com/p/climate-se...
Climate Sensitivity: The Most Contestable Number
It attracts argument because it can be argued, not because it determines urgency.
justdean.substack.com
Climate sensitivity matters most exactly where mitigation fails, and hardly at all where it succeeds. It isn't a fixed stake we're arguing over. It's a stake whose size we set. justdean.substack.com/p/climate-se...
Climate Sensitivity: The Most Contestable Number
It attracts argument because it can be argued, not because it determines urgency.
justdean.substack.com
The climate has always changed. Not like this.
Trump's latest attack on nature: this time revoking protection for the incomparable Boundary Waters Canoe WIlderness. eos.org/articles/one... This feels even more personal than most, since some of my Midwestern forebears (by marriage) were instrumental in establishing protection.
One Billion Years Ago, Northern Minnesota Nearly Split Apart. Now, Two Companies Want to Mine the Aftermath. - Eos
A continental rift created valuable mineral deposits beneath a remote wilderness beloved by recreationists.
eos.org
Professor, I appreciated your previous engagement and discussion about "The Anthropocene Loop." FWIW, I just published on updated version on Substack. I would love to get your quick impressions. justdean.substack.com/p/the-anthro...
The Anthropocene Loop
The Holocene has lasted 11,700 years. Modern climate change outlasts it.
justdean.substack.com
Published climate projections run to 2500 and stop, with the planet still hot. Nobody in that framework asks what comes after — it isn't what the framework is for. So I extended them. The answer is measured in tens of millennia. justdean.substack.com/p/the-anthro...
The Anthropocene Loop
The Holocene has lasted 11,700 years. Modern climate change outlasts it.
justdean.substack.com
I decided to take break from my usual posts about climate change and write about who I am and how I got here, i.e. tracing my ancestry back through written records and marvels of DNA haplogroups. justdean.substack.com/p/who-i-am-a...
Who I Am and How I Got Here
The oldest thing I can tell you about myself is the thing I have known the shortest time.
justdean.substack.com
I decided to take break from my usual posts about climate change and write about who I am and how I got here, i.e. tracing my ancestry back through written records and marvels of DNA haplogroups. justdean.substack.com/p/who-i-am-a...
Who I Am and How I Got Here
The oldest thing I can tell you about myself is the thing I have known the shortest time.
justdean.substack.com
In a post on X on Thursday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright wrote that Dr. Wielicki “is an honest scientist who follows the data wherever it leads.” Okay then, Follow this! justdean.substack.com/p/the-ground...
The Ground They Wouldn’t Fight On
What a federal panel of climate skeptics chose to argue about — and the one thing they left alone.
justdean.substack.com
Scan your local news today. How many stories are about something climate change is making worse...without saying so? I counted 8 of those in my feed today, vs just 1 that named climate change directly. Why does this matter? Research shows that making this connection changes how people see it.
In a post on X on Thursday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright wrote that Dr. Wielicki “is an honest scientist who follows the data wherever it leads.” Okay then, Follow this! justdean.substack.com/p/the-ground...
The Ground They Wouldn’t Fight On
What a federal panel of climate skeptics chose to argue about — and the one thing they left alone.
justdean.substack.com
I understand that Democrats aren't supposed to talk about climate change anymore. Maybe if we made it easy enough for everyone to see and understand how different modern climate change is from natural climate change over the last 66 million years, we could stir things up again. Just saying.
A Different Way to See Climate Change
Dean Rovang - Staying Curious · justdean.substack.com · ORCID 0009-0006-1351-5320
justdean.substack.com
This, I predict, will not go well.
Scott Waldman@scottpwaldman.bsky.social · last mo.The White House has reconstituted the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which tracks climate change and produces the National Climate Assessment. The Trump version will focus on "positive" climate effects and be used to protect fossil fuel companies from lawsuits. www.politico.com/news/2026/07...
I detail the incredible number of heat records set in Europe in my June monthly global climate summary post, yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/07/june...
June 2026: Earth’s 2nd-hottest June on record » Yale Climate Connections
An astonishing heat wave in Europe June 22-30 broke 10 all-time national heat records and set 394 all-time heat records at stations with a long-term period of record of at least 40 years.
yaleclimateconnections.org
250 million years ago there was a massive release of greenhouse gases and ok sure it led to the extinction of most life on earth but after that we got dinosaurs
Scott Waldman@scottpwaldman.bsky.social · last mo.The White House has reconstituted the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which tracks climate change and produces the National Climate Assessment. The Trump version will focus on "positive" climate effects and be used to protect fossil fuel companies from lawsuits. www.politico.com/news/2026/07...
Here is the capstone my series has been building toward. justdean.substack.com/p/the-ground...
The Ground They Wouldn’t Fight On
What a federal panel of climate skeptics chose to argue about — and the one thing they left alone.
justdean.substack.com
If you believe that climate scientists got together and made all this up, you might be a conspiracy theorist. justdean.substack.com/p/a-differen...
A Different Way to See Climate Change
Dean Rovang - Staying Curious · justdean.substack.com · ORCID 0009-0006-1351-5320
justdean.substack.com
What *actually* works — right here, right now — to address climate change? Here you go. This is the result of thousands of hours of painstaking research and analysis from the Project Drawdown team.
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.
After nearly two decades, this massive New Mexico wind project is now powering California
One of the largest clean energy projects in United States history is now online, delivering electricity from a massive wind farm in New Mexico to Arizona and California.
latimes.com
The world has warmed by around 1.4C since 1850. It took 148 years for the first half of that warming to occur, and just 27 years for the second half!
An open letter in four questions, to anyone who finds the climate case overstated. It rests on one diagram — 66 million years of records meeting at 1850 — and on nothing any working climate scientist disputes. The questions are the kind that don't have easy answers.
An open letter, in four questions
An open letter to the reader who feels the climate case is overstated
justdean.substack.com
Climate sensitivity isn't one contested number — it's four, measured at different times as the same response unfolds: TCR, ECS, ESS, and the paleoclimate slope. New explainer on where each comes from, and why "sensitivity" arguments are usually people measuring different things.
Climate sensitivity: where the numbers come from
Four quantities, four experiments, four ways of asking the same question
justdean.substack.com
Subsidizing coal because you hate renewables is like putting lead back in gasoline just to show that old cars worked just fine.
Do our politicians act like they are properly aware that their actions today are changing climate on Earth for thousands of years to come? Do they have sleepless nights and intensive exchange with experts over this huge responsibility?
Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf@rahmstorf.bsky.social · 2mo agoWe are in the Age of Humans - the Anthropocene. Our new article (open access) shows how even with a moderate future emissions scenario, global temperature will still be elevated by 3-4°C in the year 3000! Lifetime of our CO2 in the air is that long. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
My rule of thumb is this: I would not want to live in a city where, if I trip and fall on the pavement, I could get third-degree burns. nice substack by @deanrovang.bsky.social justdean.substack.com/p/the-phoeni...
The Phoenix We Are Choosing
When does reverse migration become the norm?
justdean.substack.com