Pete Homyak

It was wonderful to be there and thank you so much for hosting me! Looking forward to future interactions

Trump administration plans to break up largest federal climate research center Russ Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the National Science Foundation "will be breaking up" the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

“NCAR has played a greater role in advancing weather prediction & atmospheric modeling than perhaps any other single entity in the world,” says @weatherwest.bsky.social

Dismantling NCAR would be “like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.” KH

Save NCAR from being dismantled today! The Trump Administration has vowed to dissolve the center that provides critical extreme weather and climate data for our nation.

AGU has a Congressional email and call script up on NCAR:

#AGU25 B22F. Geoclimatic Drivers of Nitric Oxide (NO), Nitrous Oxide (N2O), and Nitrogen (N2) Emissions: Microscale to Global-Scale Controls I Oral
Day/Time: Tuesday, 16 December 2025: 10:30 - 12:00, NOLA CC, New Orleans Theater A
@agubiogeosciences.bsky.social

Heat and drought change what forests breathe out After six years of UC Riverside-led research in a temperate Chinese forest, researchers have found that warming may be reducing nitrogen emissions, at least in places where rainfall is scarce.

Press release of the manuscript found here: news.ucr.edu/articles/202...

Lower N emissions were mechanistically linked to lower microbial processing of N as soil moisture decreased under warming. This shows that warming-induced losses in soil moisture can offset expected temperature effects on soil N cycling as the planet warms.

We show that opposite to projections based exclusively on temperature, soil N emissions were suppressed under warming, an observation shared across other warming experiments receiving < 1,000 mm/y precipitation—but not by those receiving > 1,000 mm/y where warming increased N emissions.

Exciting new 🧪 work by Kai Huang on #soil N emissions after warming a forest for 6 years @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment.

The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

The GRFP announcement from NSF cuts out an entire cohort of 2nd year students from consideration, without warning. This is so deeply unfair that it warrants a formal protest from the scientific community. If someone wants to work with me to craft an open letter and solicit signatures, LMK.

We are witnessing a full blown war on science, public health & truth itself.

Let me be clear: Vaccines have prevented more than 1.1 million deaths, 500 million cases of illness & 32 million hospitalizations.

That's a lot of moms and dads who don't have to bury their children.

FDA will limit Covid vaccines to people over 65 or at high risk of serious illness, leaders say The FDA announced it will limit access to Covid-19 vaccines going forward to people 65 and older and others at high risk of serious illness

GUYS. The comment period for this ends in THREE DAYS. PLEASE if you have even a little bit of time, submit a comment here: www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD...

Let them know EVERYONE should be able to get COVID vaccines. They BACK DOWN when WE PUSH BACK. www.statnews.com/2025/05/20/f...

The World Is Wooing U.S. Researchers Shunned by Trump

The World Is Wooing U.S. Researchers Shunned by Trump www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/b...

Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund

Everyone needs to understand that dismantling NSF will have devastating long term consequences in our competitiveness and innovation in science, technology and beyond. 1/

An image with a prescription pill bottle. Text on the image reads: 99% of all new medications resulted from federally-funded university research through NIH

Did you know? 99% of all new medications resulted from federally-funded university research through #NIH

Learn more about #ResearchSavesLives: hub.jhu.edu/research-sav....

And with @alexkrichels.bsky.social now on Bluesky!

with @drylandfire.bsky.social @m-j-spasojevic.bsky.social @globalchangebio.bsky.social @agu.org

Inducing severe water limitation may push drylands across “aridity tipping points” beyond which AOB are not stimulated by excess soil N availability, but AOA contributions to NO emissions persist. This caused nitrate to accumulate in soils, leading to the emission of N2O upon rewetting.

We found that both increasing and decreasing summer precipitation can favor AOB-derived NO emissions when soils wet up at the end of the summer, a period characterized by N loss across drylands.

Nitrogen Availability and Changes in Precipitation Alter Microbially Mediated NO and N2O Emissions From a Pinyon–Juniper Dryland Climate change is altering precipitation regimes that control nitrogen (N) cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. In ecosystems exposed to frequent drought, N can accumulate in soils as they dry, stimula...

In new work by Sharon, we studied whether changes in #soil N in response to shifts in precipitation may favor tradeoffs between AOA and AOB nitrifiers and the emission of NO and #N2O 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I am crushed to learn that a brilliant researcher at CDC/NIOSH with decades of expertise and seminal papers on flu virus in respiratory particles and effectiveness of masks has been fired.

Exciting! And likely occurring in soils as well to help explain the rapid reduction of 15N-nitrate to N2O we observe in sunny California deserts. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sunlight drives the abiotic formation of nitrous oxide in fresh and marine waters Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas and the main stratospheric ozone-depleting agent, yet its sources are not well resolved. In this work, we experimentally show a N2O production pathway no...

Very interesting finding: photochemical formation of N2O in freshwater and marine waters.

The N cycle gets more complex. 🧐

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Science has learned that grant termination letters went out last night to principal investigators of 29 awards made by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), including nine grants that were part of a program hoping to deliver antiviral drugs to prevent future pandemics.

Other terminated grants involved research to develop improved COVID-19 vaccines and to address Long Covid, the mysterious lingering aftermath of some SARS-CoV-2 infections. “The research is being treated like we already have all the answers we will need in the future and that the current vaccines work well enough and don’t need improvement, which we know is not true,” says an investigator involved with one of the NIAID grants who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. “Some of the studies being canceled were attempting to make a pancoronavirus vaccine, which would hopefully be available the next time a novel coronavirus jumps species into humans.”

Folks, very bad news for #LongCOVID. Deep breath.

29 awarded grants to do with COVID and Long COVID have been rescinded by NIH. 🧪

www.science.org/content/arti...

Just heard that Trump is putting an end to atmospheric monitoring site NY67 that is run out of my lab. This is one of the oldest NADP sites in the US, continually measuring acid rain and other pollutants since 1977. Closing it down is tragic.

We strongly denounce the Trump Administration’s latest round of NASA firings and office closures, which will undermine the agency’s ability to carry out its missions to advance scientific knowledge and benefit humanity.

Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need - scoop.me In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Why? The country applies the "Housing First" concept agains homelessness.

“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”

AGU has joined a lawsuit challenging the firing of probationary employees at federal agencies.

These actions weaken science, harm public health & the environment, and threaten national security. 🧵 #StandWithScience

Our next DEI committee event for @agubiogeosciences.bsky.social is in two weeks. ‘Community empowerment: Thriving together despite the unknowns’) to continue building and strengthening our community. Register here: tinyurl.com/biogeothriving2

48 Scientific Societies Representing Almost 100,000 Scientists Ask Congress to Protect the Future of Science 48 scientific societies representing almost 100,000 scientists signed on to a letter asking Congress to protect the future of science

In a remarkable show of unity, today 48 scientific societies representing almost 100,000 members call on Congress to protect the future of science. Our elected officials must act now so we have a hope of avoiding long-term damage to the US science enterprise. www.ucsusa.org/about/news/s...