Some business news: Pleased to announce today was my first day as Director, Science Policy News, at the American Institute of Physics. We're best known for FYI: Science Policy News www.aip.org/fyi the long-running weekly newsletter and news platform for science insiders. More TK.

FYI: Science Policy News from AIP

FYI is an authoritative source for science policy news and analysis trusted by policymakers and scientists nationwide.

aip.org

Report from Spain's La Razon newspaper about the fires near Madrid threatening NASA's Deep Space Network facility near Robledo de Chavlea, which has been evacuated. No damage to the DSN as of when that was written, however. www.larazon.es/actualidad/f...

El fuego arrincona la estación de la NASA de Robledo de Chavela

El avance de las llamas ha obligado a evacuar el municipio madrileño mientras los equipos de emergencia trabajan para proteger unas instalaciones clave para las comunicaciones con las misiones espacia...

larazon.es

I have heard from former colleagues, and the layoffs have cut deep once again, after several brutal layoffs over the past 4 years.

Michael Greshko@michaelgreshko.bsky.social · 2w ago

Entertainment industry outlets are reporting big layoffs at Disney today, with National Geographic apparently being hit especially hard. I am bracing for what this will mean for National Geographic's editorial team. deadline.com/2026/07/disn...

NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship applications are now open! cpaess.ucar.edu/cgc/annual-r... I was one about 350 years ago, and cannot not speakly highly enough of this program. Applications due October 16, 2026

James has been a great freelancer for Science since he left New Scientist -- it's a coup for Nature (our friendly competitor) to get him on staff! One of the few reporters I might find at a geochemistry conference. You all can always flag me first on a story before Nature, of course. ;-)

James Dinneen@jamesdinneen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Hello friends. I'm starting a new job today reporting for @nature.com on all things climate and Earth science, energy, and beyond.🌍Please get in touch if you're a researcher/gov staffer/startup with results/projects that deserve attention--or are facing problems we should know about. Contact in bio.

An update on the OMB comments story. A few days ago I became aware of a bizarre issue with the OMB website that throws serious doubt on the overall reported number of comments received. Our analysis focused on posted comments only and none of that is affected. But this is really weird:

No, There Aren't 500,000 Comments on OMB's Proposed Reg

Regulations.gov systematically misreports comment counts

presentofcoding.substack.com

My latest for @science.org: Scientists have discovered a new record-breaking ancient meteorite from Mars, formed more than 4.1 billion years ago. Dubbed Teghaza 001, it provides an unprecedented view of the martian crust from this time, suggesting it was much more complex than once thought.

Oldest known Mars rock offers glimpse of planet’s watery youth

Ancient Teghaza meteorite hints at granitelike crust and shows Mars was already losing its water 4.1 billion years ago

science.org

My oldest kiddo's first summer at sleepaway camp in the Poconos: two heat waves, huge downpours, power outages, and wildfire smoke. Climate change does not explain all of it -- but yes, a lot of it. (Everyone at the camp is still having a great time, by all accounts.)

Admirable job by what must be @eaterofsun.bsky.social bringing together the ongoing mystery of the surge in absorbed sunlight on Earth. CERES, pattern effects, ECS -- oh my.

The rate at which Earth is absorbing energy is alarming climate scientists

Reflections on a warming planet

economist.com

This is an interesting claim, and perhaps true from a legal perspective, but from an ethical perspective, it seems to me overly general.

Bob Berwyn@bberwyn.bsky.social · 3w ago

Fossil fuel company execs carry the biggest burden of climate guilt, but elected and appointed government officials are not far behind.

Great to see StormWall getting a bit more traction in the broader press! Here's a gift link to the @mims.bsky.social story.

A Plan to Stop Solar Storms From Sending Us Back to the Stone Age

The plan involves school-bus-size satellites and a whole lot of salt, and it could provide an ionic ‘air bag’ for the Earth.

wsj.com

Prof. Dr. Dan guy -issimo.@spacecataz1663.bsky.social · 4w ago

The work that @drbwalsh.bsky.social and I did to develop a concept for stopping space weather is now **front page** on the Wall Street Journal. It's been a wild week.

Since a lot of climate reporters will be covering extreme event attribution next week, I'm resharing my story from 2022 that looked at both critiques of traditional methods and emerging techniques to improve the field. It might be helpful if you want to wade into the science.

Record-shattering events spur advances in tying climate change to extreme weather

2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave serves as testing ground for new attribution methods

science.org

It's going to be interesting to see how they butcher not only the next NCA, but also the required review process. They couldn't get their DOE "climate science" report through any meaningful review. They'll have the same problems here, even if they learn from their experience (questionable).

Scott Waldman@scottpwaldman.bsky.social · 4w ago

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...

Who are some science journalists writing great newsletters? Trying to get some more independent science writing in my feed.

My latest for @science.org: The rifting of Gondwana likely led, some *100 million* years later, to the formation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. (Yes, CO2 decline was also part of it.) The past isn't even past. A fascinating expansion of @gernon.bsky.social's mantle waves work.

How an ancient continental breakup helped spawn the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Mantle waves and tectonic stretching lofted polar mountains into a deep freeze

science.org

One of the climate modeling preprints that I cited in my feature, finding that AMOC was resilient and reversible to realistic Greenland melt, is out now in Science Advances. Not shockingly, it hasn't gotten broad coverage.

Limited impact of Greenland meltwater on abruptness and reversibility of future Atlantic overturning changes

Climate model simulations show the Atlantic overturning circulation can recover even from strong future Greenland ice sheet melt.

science.org

We'll take that as a compliment 🙌 And note that "temperature" in this case includes projections at 5-year intervals for TAVG *and* TMAX for 8,000 global cities (TMIN soon), with metrics derived from daily simulations (CDD, HDD, Days >35C) for a select sample group. 👉 synthesis.berkeleyearth.org

Paul Voosen@voosen.me · last mo.

Very cool: @berkeleyearth.org has launched the beta of their Climate Model Synthesis, their attempt to make (better) downscaled bias-corrected climate projections broadly available. Right now it only does temperature, which is easier (but not easy). Precip to come. synthesis.berkeleyearth.org

Very cool: @berkeleyearth.org has launched the beta of their Climate Model Synthesis, their attempt to make (better) downscaled bias-corrected climate projections broadly available. Right now it only does temperature, which is easier (but not easy). Precip to come. synthesis.berkeleyearth.org

This "Promise" pitch/floater will be a good test for the space press who primarily focus on human spaceflight. Talk to planetary scientists. Where's that RTG gonna come from (and take away from)? How in the world do they think it would actually be flight operable?

It’s hard to convey the level of stupidity of this decision. The closest comparison I can come up with is thinking your run down 1950s vintage car you use for spare parts can suddenly compete in an F1 race.

Kevin 🚀@astro-kevin.com · last mo.

I heard about this a while back but couldn’t post about it bc it wasn’t public information. They want to send the engineering model of the curiosity rover to the moon. Every single person I know at JPL is flabbergasted anyone would ever consider doing that.

I heard about this a while back but couldn’t post about it bc it wasn’t public information. They want to send the engineering model of the curiosity rover to the moon. Every single person I know at JPL is flabbergasted anyone would ever consider doing that.

Loren Grush@lorengrush.bsky.social · last mo.

NASA has awarded more lunar lander contracts for its moon base plan, while announcing new capabilities it wants for the moon and an intention to fly a rover based on the Mars Perseverance rover to the moon?? www.nasa.gov/news-release...

This is wild: NASA Admin Isaacman just floated the idea of sending one of the Curiosity/Percy engineering models to the Moon. Not clear which. They called it "Promise." But I thought the models were called Maggie and Optimism? And this of course would require an RTG, a limited quantity right now...

NASA Moon Base Update (June 30, 2026)

YouTube video by NASA

youtube.com

Re the CCS/Wedges discussion, I think I have a helpful data point: to see where climate science/policy actually stood on CCS in Aug 2004, when the review paper came out, you can look to a news feature in Science from the *exact same issue* as Wedges. First draft of history and all that.

The Carbon Conundrum

En route to hydrogen, the world will have to burn huge amounts of fossil fuels—and find ways to deal with their climate-changing byproducts

science.org

There’s a huge leap in the last sentence here, and I’m curious as to the evidence that 1) whether academics believed in the potential of CCS had a significant impact on development of alternatives and

Rob@robertferry.bsky.social · last mo.

In summary, even high profile academics were sold on the potential of CCS to allow fossil fuels to be part of the energy mix into a "net-zero" future. But that was always a fantasy and it is in large part responsible for decades of delay on actions that would have actually made a difference. //

I have to correct an error in my comments yesterday on the ProPublica article. Chris Mottershead’s contributions to the Wedges paper are clearly acknowledged, as is the funding by BP. So the supposed scandal here is, simply, the neoliberal university

Bob Kopp@bobkopp.net · last mo.

Actually, I need to correct an error here, my eye just wasn’t attuned to the acknowledgement style of Science a quarter century ago. The relationship is acknowledged.

Gutted to hear of the passing of V. “Ram” Ramaswamy, who had led NOAA's influential climate lab, GFDL, since 2008. He had a truly American success story and lasting legacy. May his memory be a blessing to his friends and family.

Venkatachalam "Ram" Ramaswamy Obituary (1955 - 2026) - Lawrenceville, New Jersey

Ram was born on April 28th, 1955 and passed away on June 21st, 2026 at the age of 71

lestermemorialhome.com

It’s never been a secret that the MIT Joint Program on Global Change, the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum and the Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative received funding from and engaged intellectually with the fossil fuel industry.

As you may know, the JOIDES Resolution is on its final transit to a shipbreaking yard in Turkey. Though expected, this news is difficult to hear. As we feel this loss, we want to hear from you: What is your favorite story from the JR? 📷 Phil Christie / Sea1 (left) 📷 Adam Bogus / IODP (right)

Journalism is in crisis—including science and environmental journalism. The industry is in really rough shape, and this blow makes matters worse.

Dan Vergano@danvergano.bsky.social · last mo.

Scientific American is being sold to LabX Media, publisher of Discover: group.springernature.com/gp/group/med... They've fired me and other union staff, ahead of June 26 vote ratification. My rates are suddenly more reasonable, if you need editing or reporting - Argonaut2026@gmail.com

Tl;dr: Scientific American is being sold to LabX Media. As someone who previously worked for a LabX pub that LabX proceeded to run into the ground, I am...skeptical that this signals anything good.