@mdettinger
Water/environ/climate news & my own calculations when relevant, from CarsonCity (Wá∙šiw land), NV. Retired USGS & now p/t @CW3EScripps scientist Letters by my name: PhD.UCLA F.AGU F.AAAS M.NAE; www.mdettinger.com
The Sierra snow is (of course) thin this year (& mostly in southern range). With lots of rain, rainy snow, and thin snow cover, the "cold content" of Sierra snows has to be small--ie, snow temperatures are not much below freezing--so yeah, it shdn't take much to shrink or remove it in most places.
Meta study suggests need for different strategy for communicating about climate change: Reduce the tendency (found by the study) for overoptimism by framing climate risks in relation to specific groups rather than humanity as a whole.
www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2026/03/the-...
A marine heat wave continues to impact the U.S. West Coast EEZ (exclusive economic zone)
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-stor...
"The #Ethiopia story is fascinating... Ethiopia made history in 2024 by becoming the first country to ban the sale and import of new internal combustion-powered vehicles. Despite the predictions of the anti-EV hysterics, they’re doing just fine."
#ClimateSky
electrek.co/2026/02/20/t...
Report from Environmental Protection Network (a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of 100s of former EPA staff) details how new EPA actions have eased limits on chemicals in food, consumer products, water & air.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/wp-content/u...
Overeager Trump’s suit to kill Vermont’s climate-superfund policy (requiring major polluters to pay for damages from carbon emissions) claims federal law, not state law, governs GHGs. But EPA’s repeal of its endangerment finding ceded that federal authority.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Multiple news outlets are reporting a US attack on an Iranian #desalination plant.
If verified, this violates international law protecting #water systems during wars, and it sets a dangerous precedent, given intense dependence of Gulf countries on desalination.
timesofoman.com/article/1691...
Revision of decarbonization wedges divides the vast solution space into a detailed list of options w/o limiting to one strategy. They provide a scale-able planning toolkit: Set a temperature target & select enough strategy wedges to reach it, weighing the trade-offs.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Study in Nature Geoscience seems to confirm that a giant blob of salty water held carbon dioxide deep in the ocean during the last ice age, & the blob released that CO2 during an upwelling event 18K years ago.
eos.org/articles/how...
Despite 2023 drought-driven increased fires in the Amazon, fire-related emissions from the rainforest were w/in long-term avg. The rainforest’s change from carbon sink to carbon source was caused by vegetation absorbing less carbon due to drought, not fire-induced C release.
eos.org/research-spo...
Hansen: “The danger of passing the point of no return is [a taboo topic] w/IPCC [but] deserves to be debated…The danger of passing [this] point is not reason to panic, though; climate’s delayed response [still] leaves time to take action” now.
jimehansen.substack.com/p/runaway-cl...
The state’s leaders have pledged their fealty to fossil fuels, but we’re first in utility-scale solar. Wonder if that annoys them? Hope so. insideclimatenews.org/news/0503202...
Public health chaos and research funding cuts are inspiring nationwide pro-science protests against the Trump administration
There were no bids on a Trump administration auction to drill in Alaska, undermining the US president’s push to expand domestic oil production.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/c...
Climate-chg projections indicate landmasses of the South Pacific (e.g., New Zealand) will be hotspots for among the largest increases in atmospheric rivers. Historical reanalyses show significant increasing (robust & coherent) trends in AR freq over the Southern Ocean.
cw3e.ucsd.edu/cw3e-publica...
Western US snowpack is still looking BAD. Hope for snow, but plan for low river flows and severe wildfire risk.
It’s officially coming out two weeks from now, right?
A wake-up call re: recent atmospheric rivers over Antarctica!
AR-assoc'd weather significantly impacts Antarctic ice-mass balances despite arriving relatively infrequently & they have been occurring more during satellite era in some sectors. Serious SLR implications!
cw3e.ucsd.edu/cw3e-publica...
In case you’ve started to think the protests aren’t growing, aren’t big, aren’t vast or maybe even aren’t worth participating in…NOT TRUE!
See this important thread (and database/analysis):
bsky.app/profile/chen...
Heads up!
On Monday, an internal government database reported by WaPo & posted on 2 public websites by unnamed civil servants reveals the scope of Trump efforts to revise & remove info re African-American history, LGBT rights, climate change etc from 100s of NPS sites.
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
Dr. @mari-hydroclimate from @driscience (and now of @cw3escripps) offers a MAJOR improvement to the existing Atmospheric River scale, improving applicability & warnings for flood hazards (demo'd in California & Chile but likely everywhere), to appear in @NatComms.
cw3e.ucsd.edu/cw3e-publica...
This longform history of doings in the Everglades is revealing (I often wondered what really went on there behind the scenes) & a cautionary tale (for early career & established scientists alike) of interfaces betwn science & big NGO bucks.
Unfortunately I can only find it online via Apple+.
Another perspective that I sometimes trot out with my locals (albeit at a water-year level).
December 2025 through February 2026 was the 2nd warmest winter on record for the Contiguous U.S. according to Prism climate data. The widespread record to near record warmth in the west easily outweighed the cool temps in the east. 🔥🔥🔥
Lawless Planet has become one of my favorites lately
Analysis of 261 bird species over 34 yrs shows continental decline of abundance of all birds, w/decline hotspots in southern warm parts of NAmerica & accelerating declines in Midatlantic, Midwest & California MATCHING PATTERNS OF AGRICULTURAL INTENSITY.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
We need more than IPCC: The IPCC is crucial for assessing climate-change science but is a politically-constrained summary of ONLY the most inarguable core of the science. A GLOBAL RISK ASSESSMENT is needed to clarify the real range of risks & priorities for action.
www.euronews.com/2026/02/27/t...
Yup. Best “Electric Highway” plans and all that. We need to beat up (figuratively) Gov Lombardo about this very seriously! Make it HIS problem so he’ll prioritize fixing it with the legislature next yr.
www.bgr.com/2108152/neva...
