The emergency response to Spokane fires has been exemplary and heroic. We also need to remember this isn’t the limit of our ability to reduce wildfire risk. After 100 years of strict fire suppression, millions of acres of WA forest need fuel reduction treatments like prescribed fire & thinning.

Barry Geraghty@bgeraght.bsky.social · 3d ago

Here’s the thing that frightens me. Everyone executed their roles almost perfectly in the response to these fires and it was still this bad. Everyone. Responders, city, county and fed officials. Detection and warning systems. Everyone did their jobs very well. This was a best case outcome.

Though it may surprise East Coasters, the story of this winter was not record cold but record heat

No U.S. states had a record cold winter. Nine had a record hot one

Though it may surprise East Coasters, the story of this winter was not record cold but record heat

scientificamerican.com

After a historic 5-day stretch of storms, the Tahoe basin has lost 2-3 feet of snow in the past week. Warm weather, with rain at times, melted away much of the snow. Snow depth in Tahoe City was nearly 4 feet on Feb. 20, but is just 9 inches today, Feb. 28. #CAwx

This looks exciting! Monitoring ecosystem change and attributing the impacts to planned (like forest management) and unplanned disturbances (like fire & drought) has become the primary focus of our team at work.

Laura Dee@lauradee.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Excited to share our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com We synthesize causal discovery & inference approaches across traditions (regression adjustment, quasi-expts, SEMs, Granger causality, convergent cross-mapping, and more) into a unified workflow for ecologists. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The latest from YouGov (n ~ 7k) gives me some methodological concerns. They allowed people to rate their pun making as "outstanding" but, statistically, most are sitting indoors at the time today.yougov.com/topics/socie...

The western U.S. faces its lowest snowpack on record despite average or above-average rainfall. Warmer temperatures mean more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, and will worsen droughts in areas like the Pacific Northwest and the Colorado River Basin. science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...

“Children were in the crowd screaming.”

Alex Baumhardt@alexbaumhardt.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Just experienced the most intense tear gassing of my life by federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland where marchers gathered. There was no fast exit as they indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs. Children were in the crowd screaming. @oregoncapitalchronicle.com

IMPEACH KRISTI NOEM.

Reminder: All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.

I have spent my entire adult life being lectured by Republican politicians and conservative legal movement types about how important it is to preserve the sacred constitutional right to self-defense of *specifically this person* and then secret police murdered him in the street

Joshua J. Friedman@joshuajfriedman.com · 6mo ago

Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara says that the victim was a 37-year-old white man and US citizen with no criminal record and that he was a legally permitted gun owner.

STOP ASKING *THE PUBLIC* TO REMAIN CALM. You're talking to the wrong people. Demand that ICE and CBP stop murdering residents and then demand that they leave the city immediately.

City of Minneapolis@minneapolismn.gov · 6mo ago

We are aware of reports of another shooting involving federal law enforcement in the area of 26th Street W and Nicollet Ave. We are working to confirm additional details. We ask the public to remain calm and avoid the immediate area.

From a friend in Minneapolis, just now:

U.S. all-time records summary, past 365 days High max: 50 High min: 135 Low max: 13 Low min: 13 Stations have at least a 30-year period of record. www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/data...

Adding Rhode Island in for more New England states:

Gravel Influencer@gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 7mo ago

If you live in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont save these numbers for the various ICE watch hotlines

Remarkably, at least one observing site in every single Western U.S. state is currently reporting *record low* snowpack for this mid-winter date. In some states, esp. UT and CO, *most* sites are either record low or second lowest on record. More during Wednesday's livestream.

New World Economic Forum Global Risks data provides a stark warning: While short-term crises dominate headlines, "Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse" jumps to the 2nd highest risk over the 10-year horizon. The long term is sooner than we think. Science-based policies via IPBES are crucial.🌍

The fight against fascism starts locally. We must never forget that ICE murdered Renee Nicole Good in broad daylight. We cannot grow numb to the terror and the violence ICE is spreading to our immigrant community. #AbolishICE

the same people enacting anti-trans laws to “protect children” are forcing schools to cancel classes because they’re deploying chemical munitions and pseudo military tactics at public schools

Minneapolis schools cancel classes after Border Patrol clash disrupts dismissal at Roosevelt

Minneapolis schools closed for the week citing safety concerns after an encounter involving armed Border Patrol agents near Roosevelt High School.

mprnews.org

New paper! Real-time flood inundation mapping (FIM) services are an incredibly valuable tool for emergency management and affected communities. But do their visualizations help users quickly and accurately interpret information to make decisions? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Comparing Flood Inundation Map Features and Diagnosing Decision Support Design Challenges

Using visualisation typologies, we developed a diagnostic evaluation method for eight user-controlled ensemble FIM visualisations. Key design challenges include unclear messaging, non-accessible and ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I’m not going to make it to AGU this year. Made it to AFE in NOLA this week instead. I found this monument on the shores of the Mississippi River there.

AGU (American Geophysical Union)@agu.org · 8mo ago

🌎 THE biggest Earth & space science meeting on the planet is happening in just 10 days. 📍New Orleans is calling. Are you in? Don't let #AGU25 happen without you🫵 🤝 If you haven't already, register today and secure your attendance at AGU25: buff.ly/Cxex0O7

They shot moss into space, stuck it on the outside of the International Space Station for nine months, and then brought it back down to Earth to see how it was doing. It was basically fine! defector.com/one-small-st...

One Small Step For A Moss, One Giant Leap For Mosskind | Defector

Imagine that you are moss. (Thank you for subscribing to Defector, moss!) You are one of the most ancient types of land plants—older than flowers, older than grass, older than trees, older even than…

defector.com

I’m really surprised this isn’t bigger news. Just under 10 million people live in Tehran. Where can they go? Where else in Iran will have enough water? This will undoubtedly strain the country’s and the region’s politics, finances and governance capacity.

Dr. Aaron Thierry@thierryaaron.bsky.social · 9mo ago

'Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain' #Iran 🇮🇷

This is what climate change looks like. What used to be snow is now rain, and when the rain falls it's heavier so more goes to runoff. The result is drier conditions, even during wet years.

Colton the fish squeezer🐟🪴📚🏕️🐝@fishsqueezer.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Kinda interesting to compare water year precipitation with snowpack at a continental scale. Most of the western US has been very wet since October 1, but there is almost no snowpack anywhere except at the very highest elevations because it has been so ridiculously warm. #hydrology #wx

Scott Stephens and I have written an editorial on what we think is necessary to select for leadership in land management agencies so they are able to manage our public lands during rapid change. @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

this question being led by a private firm (and potential privatization of rollout) is a worst case scenario if you ask me

Alexander C. Kaufman@alexckaufman.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Major scoop from @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social: Stardust Solutions, the Israeli geoengineering startup led by a team of Israeli physicists, just raised $60 million to develop the technology to artificially cool the planet by reflecting sunlight as soon as the 2030s. heatmap.news/climate-tech...

Authoritarians thrive on your silence — be loud — for America.

Really proud to have been a part of this team! @sophielgilbert.bsky.social’s got a great thread of what we found when looking at how fuels treatments affect carbon storage over time. The results show that not treating forests doesn’t mean “nothing happens”. Fire & drought still impact the landscape.

Sophie Gilbert@sophielgilbert.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Forest treatments work to reduce wildfire risk to carbon storage, and also to hot drought mortality. We need more treatments, and we need them now, but also, we need them to be ongoing into the future.🧪🔥 www.frontiersin.org/journals/for...

Cool time lapse animations on the NASA Earth Observatory site of the rapidly (crazy rapidly!) shifting channels of the Yarlung Zangbo River

Braided River in Tibet Redraws Its Channels

Images spanning nearly four decades reveal the shapeshifting nature of the Yarlung Zangbo River as it flows across the Tibetan Plateau.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov

These four aerial embroideries are now available on my site! Soft flowing oceans, rocks made of pine bark chips, and lots and lots of French knots... I can never get enough of those stitches 😊 all landscapes now up here: victoriaroserichards.co.uk/collection/a... #embroidery

Many people want to bring back #beavers for water storage. Big ponds = big benefits for flood, drought, wildfire & more! But what drives big ponds? Is it *just* dam length? What drives dam length? Get your answers in this new paper by Luwen Wan, Kate Maher, & myself! www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Factors influencing surface water accumulation in beaver pond complexes across the Western United States - Communications Earth & Environment

Dam length, woody vegetation height, and stream power index explain 74% of the variation in pond area, providing a foundation for beaver restoration and watershed management in the western US, accordi...

nature.com