Mitchell Dickau, PhD
@mitchelldickau.bsky.social
Climate modelling. Temperature overshoot. Remaining carbon budgets. Temporary carbon storage. Effect of climate change on outdoor skating in Canada. Post-doctoral fellow, Concordia University https://mitchell-dickau.github.io/
Listened to @dwallacewells.bsky.social on The Gray Area @vox.com (megaphone.link/VMP9497961815). I'm a fan of David's work. But I noticed he says that 2.0°C is out of reach. Perhaps he misspoke – he's normally very well informed. As a climate scientist I'd like to correct the record.
The “Godzilla El Niño” is coming by The Gray Area with Sean Illing
megaphone.link
New paper out in Communications Earth & Environment! With @kirstenzickfeld.bsky.social and @damonmatthews.bsky.social, we explore what temporary temperature overshoot (OS) means for the slow-responding, high-inertia components of the Earth system. A thread doi.org/10.1038/s432...
Irreversible climate changes driven by degree-years of temperature overshoot - Communications Earth & Environment
Degree-years of temperature overshoot, which represent the time-integrated overshoot magnitude, are proportional to the outcome of overshoot in some slow-responding climate variables, revealed by...
doi.org
Enjoyed doing this interview for the @PLOS Climate Latitude blog! I discuss some of my recent PhD research on climate overshoots and temporary carbon storage. Check out the full interview below:
PLOS Climate@plosclimate.org · 5mo agoNew on the Latitude blog: an interview with @mitchelldickau.bsky.social, who recently completed his PhD at @concordia.ca latitude.plos.org/2026/03/plos...
Happy to announce that I passed my PhD defence yesterday!! Thanks to my supervisor @damonmatthews.bsky.social and the members of my examining committee — @nadinemengis.bsky.social, @gidden.bsky.social, Kirsten Zickfeld, and Sam Rowan
Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking carbon dioxide removal is the solution to climate change. It’s a small piece of the puzzle. But it won't be able to offset a substantial portion of our fossil fuel emissions 🧵
The land sink is uncertain in a changing climate. This is another reason why using nature-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to offset fossil emissions can be sketchy...
Glen Peters@glenpeters.bsky.social · last yr.The EU forest sink is getting much weaker, with some major revisions based on updated data, particularly from Germany. LULUCF in 2020 was -270MtCO2, but is now -220MtCO2 (approx the same in 2010). The EU has a target of -300MtCO2! See details of the German revision: bsky.app/profile/robb... 2/2
We should point to the rising costs of insurance to demonstrate that climate change is dangerous and is worth mitigating against/ adapting to. I suspect that, for many folks, $$ is easier to understand than climate observations and projections. Informative podcast on insurance and climate change
How Wildfires Destroyed California’s Insurance Market
Podcast Episode · Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins · 2025-01-22 · 1h 12m
podcasts.apple.com
Great reads. I've always believed that changes in the insurance industry are a powerful tool for driving momentum for climate policy. Unlike many other industries, private insurance can't afford to ignore climate impacts or delay action (state-run insurance is a bit different)
Andrew Dessler@andrewdessler.com · 2y agoHouston Chronicle knocked it out of the park with their series of articles about homeowners insurance in Texas. This is a looming catastrophe. First article: Inside the costly new reality of insuring a home in Texas www.houstonchronicle...
1/3 Another study showing why nature-based carbon removal, in which the duration of removal may only be years to decades at worst, should not be used to offset fossil emissions.
CarbonPlan@carbonplan.org · 2y agoOur latest research estimates that almost 40 percent of California’s forest offset buffer pool has been lost to wildfire. That’s roughly twice as many credits than have been set aside to address wildfire risks for the next 100 years. (1/4) 🧪https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17599
Susan Solomon's study, demonstrating that warming caused by CO₂ persists for thousands of years, and Damon Matthews' (my supervisor) study, showing that near-zero emissions are necessary to stabilize warming, were published 15 and 16 years ago, respectively. It seems the message still hasn't sunk in
Pierre Friedlingstein@pfriedling.bsky.social · 2y agoThe 2024 Global Carbon Budget projects fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 37.4 billion tonnes, up 0.8% from 2023. Despite the urgent need to cut emissions to slow climate change, there is still “no sign” that the world has reached a peak in fossil CO2 emissions.
Happy to have played a small part in @sethwynes.bsky.social newest paper! An interesting finding is that IPCC authors estimates' of peak warming and when we'll reach net-zero CO2 are inconsistent with climate modelling and scenario literature. We discuss some potential explanations
Seth Wynes@sethwynes.bsky.social · 2y agoCheck out our new open-access paper! We surveyed 211 IPCC authors, finding most authors are doubtful that warming will be limited to the Paris targets of well below 2°C www.nature.com/articles/s43...
