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15 Dec, 26 tweets, 8 min read
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…
Continuation of current emissions could lead to a spike in mass loss from Antarctica ~ 2060, up to 0.5 cm/yr sea level equivalent. Mitigation matters. A lot.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Much more than usual on aspects of hydroclimate. Seasonal tropical precipitation is driven by local SSTs, not remote influences.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Analysis of a quarter million water bodies shows that more than half of seasonal storage variability is in reservoirs not natural lakes.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Data from millions of wells shows widespread potential for loss of streamwater to underlying aquifers.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Like it says on the tin … global evapotranspiration increased by 10% from 2003-2019
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Most rivers/stream cease to flow for at least one day per year.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
DeepMind and co. crack nowcasting of precipitation
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Theoretical modeling study suggests, yikes, that precipitation in hothouse climate oscillates between long dry periods and massive deluges.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
The North American monsoon is mechanically forced – by the steering of the jet stream by mountains – rather than a heating mechanism.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Persistence of weather systems is a rare but I think really interesting topic. Here, big changes in the persistence of temperature systems is coming with climate change. Especially over oceans.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
I occasionally handle work on extraterrestrial atmosphere. Really liked this one, using new nightside observations to show that Venus’ Hadley circulation is poleward above clouds and equatorward in clouds.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
We continue to publish from time to time on heatwaves, now including lake heatwaves ...
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Only one paper this year really focused on oceans. The summertime mixed layer deepened and became more thermally stratified from lower waters. Would love to publish more in this area!
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Two climate econ papers. 1/2 will global warming increase $$ spent on energy? No. But this is only because most populations will not be able to afford the costs of more cooling.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
2/2 in climate econ, a downward revision in the social cost of methane … but a massive variance therein, when viewed through an equity-weighted lens
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Extremely high on the novelty scale ... what’s up with microplastics in the atmosphere? One possibility: a small cooling effect.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Other editors usually handle work in the sustainability space but I got this one (and was happy to have it!). Huge potential to meet global needs for safe drinking water using solar-powered atmospheric water harvesting.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Other editors also usually handle plant-heavy work. But I had three this year. 1/3 Global land use emissions were roughly constant from 1961-2001 … and then spiked, driven by expansion of agriculture (especially for beef).
nature.com/articles/s4158…
2/3 in the plant space ... woody plants routinely access bedrock water, not just soil water.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
3/3 in the plant space ... overwintering zombie fires can come back to life in the next fire season and in some years can be a substantial percent of overall fire activity.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
And finally, two reviews. We need to rethink how to investigate linkages between climate and civilization.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
Tipping thresholds in the Earth system can be transgressed without triggering a system shift … but it depends on the characteristics response time of the system and the magnitude and duration of the transgression.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
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More from @MWClimateSci

Michael White Profile picture
15 Dec
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…
Read 14 tweets
Michael White Profile picture
29 Sep
Today in @nature: precipitation nowcasting from @DeepMind. Open access! 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.
Read 5 tweets
Michael White Profile picture
31 Aug 20
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.
Read 18 tweets
Michael White Profile picture
1 May 20
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…
Read 27 tweets
Michael White Profile picture
5 Jun 19
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.
Read 24 tweets
Michael White Profile picture
30 May 19
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.
Read 26 tweets

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