So, do you all know who the lead author is of that 42,000-yr climate event Science paper? It's this guy. nature.com/articles/d4158…
This totally fits with the energy of the paper, which makes unsupported claims about both the genetics and paleoclimate data. Here's a great thread about problems with the former
For the latter, all you have to do is have a quick look at some of the best climate records we have - ice cores (high latitude) and speleothems (tropics), to see that *nothing happens* at 42,000 years.
The fact that this paper survived peer review is something. That fact that a bully gets the limelight back - @nytimes and all - is something. The fact that he had the hubris to name his "event" is...something nytimes.com/2021/02/18/sci…
The co-authors on this paper include people that I know and respect. To them I say - how could you sign off on this, given the dubious science claims and this dude's history? We have to do better.
I for one will not be using the term "Adams event" 🤮
Coda: Adelaide was not the first time that Cooper got in trouble. He resigned from Oxford University in 2005 after an investigation into some "grant materials". nature.com/articles/43539…
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It's #FigureFriday, so let's chat about my favorite subject: color palettes 🎨 for climate science visualization! (1/12)
First, why is it important? Put simply: a beautiful figure can communicate your results more effectively than text. It can make a figure more understandable to a public audience. So it is worth it to put care into your figure design. (2/12)
First, if you're plotting up climate model data, especially anomalies, I highly recommend Cynthia Brewer's palettes on ColorBrewer. BrBG is my go-to for precip anomalies, and RdBu is a natural for temperature. (3/12) colorbrewer2.org/#type=divergin…
The timing could be better 🥺 but our major review paper on past climates has just dropped in @ScienceMagazine. In this review, we argue that past climate climates are key to predicting the future 🗝️ science.sciencemag.org/content/370/65…
Our future climate trajectory is still unknown, but it's going to be toasty: comparable to many of the warm climates of the past 100 million years.
Earth history tells us what the climate system does under higher carbon dioxide. Not only should we study it more, but we should use paleoclimates in model evaluation. For example, to test whether the high ECS in some of the new climate models is legit. 🧐
Our paper on Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) cooling and climate sensitivity is out today in @nature! This represents four years of work, so it feels really good to see it released. Here's a short thread on what it means... nature.com/articles/s4158…
First we compile almost 2,000 geological measurements of sea-surface temperature, which believe me took some time! Then, we ran new simulations of the LGM with the @NCAR_Science CESM model, and used data assimilation to combine the info. This gives us global maps of temperature!
This new analysis suggests that globally, the LGM was 6C (11F) colder than preindustrial times. This is a little colder some previous estimates but agrees well w/ others
While there is certainly nothing wrong with making individual low-carbon choices, I am increasingly concerned with how the #actonclimate movement is emphasizing individual lifestyle over collective action. There are two problems with this (thread).
One is that framing the issue in terms of lifestyle carries with it the race/class/health/wealth point of view of the framer. But not everyone's relationship with #climatechange is the same. This was the major critique of late 20th century environmentalism hcn.org/issues/42.2/th…
The second is that individual choices are small in terms of cutting carbon. Aside from having a kid (high impact b/c another carbon footprint is added), aviation, the second most carbon-intensive individual activity, is only 4-5% of human radiative forcing sciencedirect.com/science/articl…