Beth Tellman

@socialpixel.bsky.social

2.5K followers 230 following 110 posts

floods, satellites, maps, social justice, co-founder and chief scientist Floodbase and asst. prof University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-founder @umbela-org https://beth-tellman.github.io https://www.floodbase.com https://umbela.org .. more

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Environmental science 52%

Geography 15%

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Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Jul 8

Excited to share me and (part of!) the Social Pixel Lab has moved to University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Ill be joining new faculty also hired under the RISE-Earth cluster to strengthen sustainability science, ed and outreach at UW rise.wisc.edu/rise-earth/

RISE-EARTH

By investing in the next generation of faculty leaders through RISE-EARTH, UW-Madison will be well poised to make even greater contributions to sustainability research, education and problem-solving i...

rise.wisc.edu

Reposted by Beth Tellman

Prof Lisa Schipper 🌍🍉💪 @lisaschipper.bsky.social · 4d

This is a very handy guide to different negotiating positions at COP30 by @carbonbrief.org - www.carbonbrief.org/interactive-...

Interactive: Who wants what at the COP30 climate change summit - Carbon Brief

In order to track parties’ positions on negotiating points at COP30, Carbon Brief has analysed nearly 100 submissions to the UN and captured them in a table

www.carbonbrief.org

Reposted by Jonathan A. Foley, Beth Tellman, Peter Jacobs

Project Drawdown @projectdrawdown.bsky.social · 6d

Job alert!! Project Drawdown is hiring for 3 roles:

🌐 Program Manager, Global Strategic Partnerships (deadline: Nov 7)
🔬 Research Fellow (deadline: Nov 2)
💹 Senior Analyst, Climate Philanthropy & Investing (deadline: Nov 19)

🔗 View the position descriptions here: drawdown.org/careers
#ClimateJobs

https://drawdown.org/caree…

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · 6d

and by images I mean labeled images- ones you can use to go test and train your own algorithms. go poke our results and test your own models. test another foundation model. try some few shot experiments etc! see if alphaearth does anything meaningful. and do let us know what you find!

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · 7d

latest out from our lab- led by Saurabh Kaushik- we find at least one geofoundational model (just testing Privthi here) is outperforming CNNs and transformers for mapping glaciers (esp. termini and snouts). we released a dataset with >1800 global images with it too! doi.org/10.1016/j.sr...

Redirecting

doi.org

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · 7d

launching the AI for a planet under pressure report with @sthlmresilience.bsky.social and Google's Deep Mind this Wednesday am- Ill be speaking about the role of AI in flooding and climate justice- link here- I will be teaching an undergrad class on this content spring 26! su.bmc.nu/Modules/Even...

AI for a planet under pressure PUBLIC EVENT

su.bmc.nu

Reposted by Peter Thorne, Du Toit, John Hogan , and 3 more Peter Thorne, Du Toit, John Hogan, Sylvain Genevois, Beth Tellman, Peter Jacobs

Dr. Jeff Masters @drjeffmasters.bsky.social · 14d

The western end of Jamaica where #Melissa is projected to make landfall has the least well-built structures of anyplace on the island. Graphic is from a 2021 paper, "Poverty and hurricane risk exposure in Jamaica": www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Adam Gamoran, Karen Benjamin Guzzo , and 9 more Cas Mudde, Adam Gamoran, Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Jonathan Hopkin, Andrew L. Whitehead, Adrian Vickers, Mary L. Dudziak, Leo McCann, Lisa Diedrich, Rense Corten, Cullen S. Hendrix, Beth Tellman

Sheila Liming @seeshespeak.bsky.social · 15d

BREAKING: economist discovers “second shift,” a concept coined by sociologists almost 50 years ago; gives it new, stupider, and less explicitly labor-oriented name

Highlighted quotation: “As an economist, Low searched for a more precise term to describe how she and other working moms often find themselves stretched for time and energy. She came up with “the squeeze”, and it’s backed by data that shows how women often get burnt out trying to manage competing demands at home and work, especially when they are parenting young children.”

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · 17d

Social pixel lab social last month. Someone said to me in my first week the uw memorial union is the best place to get a beer on any college campus in the us. I’m pretty sure that’s true :) lake life!!!

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · 17d

Organizers: Beth Tellman (University of Wisconsin Madison), Bertha Hernandez Aguilar (National Laboratory of Sustainability Sciences, Institute of Ecology, UNAM). Sponsored by the Human Dimensions of Global Change and Hazards Specialty Groups

Reposted by Clark Gray

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · 17d

Do you work on vulnerability and or dimensions of power or politics in cities? We'd love you in our #aag2026 session email us by oct 31 with your abstract->The role of formal and informal power structures in shaping vulnerability and risk in cities from the Global North to the Global South.

Reposted by Elizabeth Stokoe, Alan Richardson, Els Torreele , and 9 more Elizabeth Stokoe, Alan Richardson, Els Torreele, Conway Waddington, Damian Trilling, David Murakami Wood, Anthony Burke, Michael Larkin, Eugene McCann, Beth Tellman, David Spurrett, Dawn R. Gilpin

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 18d

Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory

An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk

Reposted by Erle C. Ellis, Ed Hawkins, Bram Büscher , and 6 more Erle C. Ellis, Ed Hawkins, Bram Büscher, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Juan Rocha, Anthony Burke, Tim Stephens, Aidan O’Sullivan, Beth Tellman

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Oct 7

News that shocks no one: Carbon offsets do nothing for climate.

Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says

Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions

www.theguardian.com

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 7

another consequence of failing to take action before the shutdown- the national flood insurance program lapsed on Sept 30- which insures 5M us homes www.realtor.com/advice/finan...

www.realtor.com

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 3

Horrific and wrong we cannot let this continue to happen in our country

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · Oct 3

According to eyewitnesses, armed ICE agents dragged kids out of their beds in the middle of the night, zip tied them and put them in rented vans while raiding an * entire apartment building* on the South Side of Chicago.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOXO...

‘F--- them kids’: ICE agents drag children out of bed, ransack Chicago building

YouTube video by MSNBC

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Ken Caldeira, Tom Clark, John Horgan , and 12 more Ken Caldeira, Tom Clark, John Horgan, Leo Lucassen, Megan L. Ranney, Rosemary A. Joyce, Sanford F. Schram, Michael Kevane, Laurent Pech, Robert B. Reich, Anne Norton, Claire L. Adida, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Beth Tellman, Búi K. Petersen

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · Oct 3

‘F--- them kids’: ICE agents drag children out of bed, ransack Chicago building

YouTube video by MSNBC

www.youtube.com

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 3

I know yall do and I feel so lucky to be somewhere with so many internal grants to access :) it’s why I’m writing so many!!

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 2

when designing an index- check out multiple sources of data to see what converges or diverges before designing a policy. You might need multiple indices to increase your confidence you pay out in the right floods and lower your basis risk. using a simple rainfall index could fail to trigger beware!

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 2

TLDR. satellite, rainfall, stream gauge data all tell you something different about floods and if you pick one for index insurance- that matters! the AI based satellite product we developed (MODIS+S1) has lower uncertainty (would could make premiums cheaper) and pays out sooner than others

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 2

great writeup U Arizona did on my student Alex Saunders' new lead authored paper with @arbennett.bsky.social @thirstygecko.bsky.social @benamie.bsky.social + S. Islam, J. Giezendanner, S. Houssain news.arizona.edu/news/u-resea... paper here: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

U of A researchers reveal the importance of data choice in effective flood insurance

After testing five sources of flood data, their analysis found that combining or comparing data could improve disaster response and recovery.

news.arizona.edu

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 1

But damn this is exhausting and maddening. I don’t do science anymore I just perma-fundraise for what was lost. Instead I could have been making flood maps and training more people and organizations to make them. But now I just beg for money to do these things. Hopefully something hits!!

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Oct 1

Wrapping up my 8th and 9th grant since April when almost all my labs funding was terminated. $1.1M. So far got $330k funded by rewriting a grant for work I was supposedly funded to do. This is the least fun I have had in this job. I know I am sadly not alone and more important things are defunded

Reposted by Beth Tellman

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · Sep 30

At Grist, Laura Mallonee has just published a critically important article on the Texas flood recovery and how unincorporated boundaries are impacting equitable recovery. I was happy to chat with Laura about my ongoing research on these issues in Texas and California.

grist.org/extreme-weat...

Texas floods showed why many rural communities feel abandoned in a crisis

Almost a third of Americans live in unincorporated communities beyond city limits, where disaster aid can confuse and frustrate.

grist.org

Reposted by Beth Tellman

Mirela G. Tulbure, PhD @mirelagtulbure.bsky.social · Sep 26

First NISAR images!!

www.nasa.gov/news-release...

NASA-ISRO Satellite Sends First Radar Images of Earth’s Surface - NASA

The NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) Earth-observing radar satellite’s first images of our planet’s surface are in, and they offer a glimpse of

www.nasa.gov

Reposted by Bryan D. Jones, Beth Tellman

Andrew Rumbach @andrewrumbach.bsky.social · Sep 25

Terrific investigation by the @houstonchronicle.com finds that 20% of residential properties built since Harvey in greater Houston are in a mapped floodplain, 57,000 in-all. www.houstonchronicle.com/projects/202...

65K Houston-area properties have been built in floodplains since Hurricane Harvey

Houston’s relentless push into new suburbs has overlooked flood risks, putting tens of thousands of families in harm’s way.

www.houstonchronicle.com

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Sep 24

trying to beast thru revisions on my LAST unpublished dissertation chapter. 2 babies, 3 jobs and 6 years later! data is data baby! its still an solid paper. publishing is about persistence never give up! a revise/resubmit from a good journal and worth it! pumping up myself and others if they need it

Reposted by Beth Tellman

Paul Robbins @earthfutures.bsky.social · Sep 24

Flood risk lines are mapped to keep us safe. What happens when they can be bought? Dr. Beth Tellman tells it like it is. nelson.wisc.edu/the-commons/...

The New Gerrymander: Flood Maps | The Commons Magazine

Across the United States, floodplain maps are changed every day, sometimes in ways that could hide true flood risk and put people in danger.

nelson.wisc.edu

Reposted by A. E. Dessler, Ben Bond‐Lamberty, Gavin A. Schmidt , and 10 more A. E. Dessler, Ben Bond‐Lamberty, Gavin A. Schmidt, Jesse H. Kroll, Julie L. Lockwood, Flavio Lehner, Lauren B. Buckley, Michael J. Allen, Dustin Mulvaney, Dawn J. Wright, Juan Rocha, Halley E. Froehlich, Beth Tellman

Climate.us @climate.us · Sep 23

🚨 NCA5 is now LIVE! 🚨

They took it down, but we've brought it back at: nca5.climate.us

Bookmark. 👏 this. 👏 page. 👏

This is just our first step in restoring trusted science information that Americans need to understand what's happening with the climate.

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Sep 18

I spy Ufuoma Ovienmhada postdoc at @uarizona.bsky.social @uazenvironment.bsky.social on this list re: her work on The Toxic Prisons Mapping Project and amazing environmental justice coproduction work- lucky for me shes an affiliate of the Social Pixel Lab! congrats-so deserved- a true inspiration!

Grist @grist.org · Sep 18

Big Reminder

The 2025 #Grist50 is here! 🎉
50 leaders, thinkers, and doers who are shaping the future — from community organizers to artists to innovators redefining
what climate action looks like.

Meet the full class → grist.org/fix/grist-50...

#Climate #Food #Farming #Business #Policy #Politics

Introducing the 2025 Grist 50 list

Climate solutions are more important now than ever. Read about 50 leaders shaping the future of climate progress.

grist.org

Reposted by Beth Tellman

Grist @grist.org · Sep 18

Introducing the 2025 Grist 50 list

Climate solutions are more important now than ever. Read about 50 leaders shaping the future of climate progress.

grist.org

Beth Tellman @socialpixel.bsky.social · Sep 18

Major bummer

Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · Sep 17

🌊 >70% of W. Atlantic coral reefs will transition into net erosional states by 2040. If warming >2°C (SSP2–4.5+), 99% eroding by 2100.

Sea level will rise 0.3–0.5 m above reefs by 2060, 0.7–1.2 m by 2100, boosting coastal flood risk

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reduced Atlantic reef growth past 2 °C warming amplifies sea-level impacts - Nature

An analysis of coral reefs in the tropical western Atlantic suggests that nearly all will be eroding by 2100 if global warming exceeds 2 °C, which will worsen the effects of sea-level rise.

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