I also spoke to RTE News at One yesterday on what an Early Warning Flood System for Ireland would look like. This morning, they've also turned that into a Brainstorm article!
29.01.2026 12:06
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I also spoke to RTE News at One yesterday on what an Early Warning Flood System for Ireland would look like. This morning, they've also turned that into a Brainstorm article!
Wrote a thing for RTE Brainstorm! When Does Spring Begin? February or March? In the article I touch on how Ireland's unique geography and climate result in a battle of light versus warmth in shaping our perceptions and definitions of the beginning of Spring.
Declining river flows forced Stegodon and the hobbit out of their remote mountain refuge, potentially bringing the face to face with Homo sapiens.
Paper out now at:
www.nature.com/articles/s43...
We combined a new stalagmite geochemical record of seasonal rainfall variability with archaeological evidence to show an extreme summer rainfall drought beginning 61,000 years ago coincided with declines in the hobbit's key prey, the pygmy elephant Stegodon.
Who killed the hobbit? 💀🐘🦴⛰️🌧️☀️🪨⛏️
Our new paper out today in Communications Earth and Environment reveals the role of a major drought in the disappearance of the diminutive hominin Homo floresiensis.
theconversation.com/the-hobbits-...
Line chart – China's CO2 emissions are now 1% below their March 2024 peak: China’s emissions from fossil fuels and cement, million tonnes of CO2, rolling 12-month totals. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2024. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration.
NEW – Analysis: Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time | @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social
Read here: buff.ly/6eAcjRU
Less than a month left for you to apply
Deadline : May 14, 2025
www.speleothemschool.com/apply
Wow! 😲😲
China powers up first Thorium Molten Salt Reactor. Big, exciting step for clean energy with far lower weapons, waste and meltdown potential. futurism.com/china-thoriu...
Big deal going under the news radar: IMO introduces regulation of shipping emissions. International shipping accounts for 3% of emissions yet is not attributable to individual nations and therefore is not part of most legally binding targets. This is a mini-Paris moment.
eutoday.net/landmark-dea...
This issue of Quaternary Science Reviews comprises reviews on stable isotopes in different types of records. This is an update of the 2004 issue on “Isotopes in Quaternary Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction (ISOPAL)”, volume 23, issue 7–8, pages 739–992. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Electrification better than insulation? Some interesting thoughts (and studies!) here.
cleantechnica.com/2025/03/27/t...
On a white lab bench sits a polished stalagmite slab with ruler, a dremel multitool with drill attachment and various other sampling tools such as a scoop, scalpel and plastic vial.
U-Series sampling day. Taking those lovely polished stalagmites from last week and drilling out top and bottom powder samples so that we can date them and understand their growth history. 100mg should do the trick.
New research by @tylerbarrett.bsky.social, @rakramer.bsky.social and colleagues finds that climate change is a significant challenge for farmers in northeast Madagascar, yet adaptation is limited by existing socioeconomic inequalities
journals.plos.org/climate/arti...
They could be all sorts, most likely Holocene. Fingers crossed one of the ten turns out to have some continuous growth across the Neolithic (6-4 kyr BP ish).
Two sections on stalagmite sit on a white table. Alongside them is a heavy duty Flex Wet Polisher and six brightly coloured polishing pads.
Stalagmite Polishing Day! Getting these beauties nice and smooth so that we can identify the layering and choose the best locations for u-series sampling next week.
'Here we show that the AMOC is resilient to extreme greenhouse gas and North Atlantic freshwater forcings across 34 climate models.' www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Correction. Not the first time above 100. Must have missed that milestone!
Good to know!
Amazing new record. Ireland tops 100% renewable generation for the first time ever. Thanks interconnectors. Thanterconnectors.
The most impressive part of the improvement in weather forecasting was in 1991 when scientists managed to invent a time machine to go back and improve the five day forecast.
Either that or someone forgot to sort the columns by date before plotting.
We created time-slice maps to compare our work with BritIce-Chrono. Our results largely agree with the ‘optimal’ reconstruction but some differences, especially with the ‘maximum’ reconstruction, show utility in including speleothem data in future reconstructions of ice-sheet extent.
In detail, we compiled all published ages from nearly fifty years of speleothem research. Using the principle that stalagmites tend not to grow underneath ice-sheets and permafrost, we compared peaks and troughs in the age probability distributions with interglacial-glacial climate variability.
An artistic Irish Burren Karst landscape featuring retreating glaciers in the background. In small pockets young plants and trees are beginning to take root in an otherwise barren landscape. The landscape is mostly bright but contains a small cave entrance.
Can we use speleothem growth phases to trace the growth and decay of past ice-sheets? Our compilation of 1020 U-series dates from the UK and Ireland says Yes! Read all about it in our 📣New Paper📣 led by Sina Panitz, feat @speleoseb.bsky.social, myself and others, out now in Climate of the Past.
Very cool. I love this. Congratulations on a great paper Sophie!
🎉🎉🎉 Woo hoo! 🎉🎉🎉
Amazing feat by the Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice team!
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Smashing the 800,000 year record for a continuous ice core by a country mile back to 1.2 million years ago.
It is AI generated in Canva. Alt text is the approximate prompt. AI is useful for a social media splash, but would generally prefer an artist for more major work (once I have the grant money that pays!)
Sounds interesting. Looking forward to reading it. Though, in my opinion, I would say the two are not one asynchronous event, rather they are two different climate events.
I just discovered @alexkjames.bsky.social is on here. He's the lead author. Go Alex!
