Ever wonder about the scope of climate research published in @nature? Here are the papers published in 2021 I handled as climate science editor. Two threads. Here's part 1 on paleoclimate.
Starting with the last glacial maximum: reanalysis of noble gas records (a pretty direct and unbiased indicator of temperature) show *land* climate was ~ 6 C colder than present. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Then, a data assimilation, full-field reconstruction of global temperatures for the past 24,000 yrs every 250 yrs. 🤯🤯 nature.com/articles/s4158…
Withing the same time period, a rectification of seasonal bias in paleoclimate proxies removes the Holocene thermal maximum from tropical marine records between 40N and 40S. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Again post-LGM, shifting the start of the Younger Dryas 130 years earlier … implications for synchronization or lack thereof in many climate states/processes. nature.com/articles/s4158…
On to possible resolution of long-standing mysteries. How can you possibly accommodate a Pliocene world with a flattened zonal SST gradient in the tropical Pacific AND higher marine productivity? With a Pacific meridional overturning circulation. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Geo constraints say 10s of m of sea level variations in Early-Mid Miocene; models say the EAIS was stable. What’s up? Answer: a really big, early, and dynamic WAIS. nature.com/articles/s4158…
In the category of arresting ideas: a freshwater Arctic Ocean during Pleistocene glacials nature.com/articles/s4158…
Paleo evidence for something we think may happen with global warming ... poleward and weaker westerly winds during Pliocene warmth. nature.com/articles/s4158…
An evergreen topic: what kick starts changes in the AMOC? Here, authors point to iceberg melt in the Southern Ocean. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Antarctic ice cores record a spike in aerosol deposition, likely from Māori land use/burning. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Stunning 7 Myr record of Indian Ocean circulation/Mozambique Channel Throughflow: acceleration ~ 2.1 Myr ago, strong during glacials, weak during interglacials. Fast MCT = African aridification. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Finally, going deep time/theoretical. Did Venus ever support oceans? Nope. Earth did obv, and they must have formed billions of years ago under faint young Sun conditions. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Ever wonder about the scope of climate research published in @nature? Here are the papers published in 2021 I handled as climate science editor. Two threads. Here's part 2 on modern+future.
Much less than in past years on ice and sea level. Here's 1/3, an exhaustive quantification of global glacier mass loss, with sharply reduced uncertainties. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Community effort to estimate global mass loss from land ice by 2100, using statistical emulators: looks like no more than 50 cm under worst-case scenarios. nature.com/articles/s4158…
We receive quite a few submissions applying some flavor of ML/AI to weather forecasting. Most we decline, because the general point has been made that the technique works, and at least for @nature there usually isn't a case for another demonstration.
This one was different. First because it addressed a long-standing challenge in NWP. Second - and really intriguing for me - is that a key evaluation came from human weather forecasters, who judged the deep learning forecasts to be more useful/realistic than other approaches.
Thread. @nature encourages authors to recommend and exclude reviewers. My personal views on the strategies that are likely to increase/decrease the chances of your recommendations being taken up ... #peerreview#scicomm#climatetwitter
What to do …
Recommend scientists with minimal connections to the author group. One could argue that your previous co-authors, advisors, etc. will be familiar with your work and are therefore well placed to comment. But I will worry about a personal COI.
Thread. @nature has a huge amount of content. Confused about what our various categories mean? You’re not alone! Sure we have a guide to authors, but it is, ahem, a bit formal. Here’s a blast through our various categories.
First, content that is not normally submitted by scientists (i.e. we write ourselves, or commission) …
Editorials. Wide ranging but often we discuss a timely issue and tell someone or something what we think they should do. nature.com/articles/d4158…
Thread. I go to a lot of meetings where I have only a modest level of knowledge about the field. Which is great, because then I learn a lot. But I don’t understand the main point of many talks. #DarkConfessions#scicomm
For a long time, I reckoned this was just me, and my ignorance of community-specific jargon. Also, #ImposterSyndrome. Editors have it too.
Anyway, I began to confess my lack of understanding to other audience members, and ask them for an explanation. Turns out, many of them also did not understand the talks. At all.
Some notes on #AERE2019 coming your way! Climate, economy, agriculture, social cost of carbon and more.
Kevin Rennert from @rff: social cost of carbon estimates need GDP estimates to ~2300. Based on estimated growth rates, you can get $10 billion/yr GDP per capita! So...elicitation in progress to constrain statistical estimates of GDP.
Cool intercomparison tool: mimiframework.org allows easy comparison of DICE FUND and PAGE IAMs and their SCC estimates.