Eric Steig
Eric Steig
@ericsteig.bsky.social

Glaciologist and isotope geochemist. Research focus is the climate of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Environmental science 43%
Geology 29%

Reposted by Eric J. Steig

This will be my first actual post on this platform.

I want to highlight the recent paper by Naughten and others, here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is a really important paper, but I want to mention a couple of minor caveats.

Tell us abut IQ2300?

Reposted by Eric J. Steig

after reading this, I subscribed to @theverge.com

we need to support outlets who are holding those in power to account

www.theverge.com/policy/63339...
We ran the wrong headline about Trump firing the FTC commissioners
Our readers have a point.
www.theverge.com

Read this and weep. Use Google translate if you don't speak French. Short version is: French researcher not allowed to enter US because he had personal texts or emails criticizing Trump. This was equated with "terrorism" by the US officials.

www.lemonde.fr/internationa...
Etats-Unis : un chercheur français refoulé pour avoir exprimé « une opinion personnelle sur la politique menée par l’administration Trump »
Le ministre de la recherche français a dit sa « préoccupation », mercredi, après cette décision des autorités américaines. Le chercheur du CNRS aurait subi un contrôle aléatoire à son arrivée, avant q...
www.lemonde.fr

The New York Times reports that American business leaders are surprised Trump is following through on tariffs. But he's expressed his love of tariffs for the last 40 years!

I would dearly love to know: Are American business leaders greedy because they are stupid, or stupid because they are greedy?
🚨 HUGE news from Canada's tricouncils who are harmonizing their scholarship & fellowship programs, upping the total number (huzzah!), and critically, allowing foreigners to apply for doctoral and postdoc fellowships. Want to work with me? Get in touch! 🇨🇦🧪⚒️

www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NewsDetail-D...
NSERC - Latest News - Launch of the new Harmonized Tri-agency Scholarship and Fellowship programs
As announced in Budget 2024, the scholarship and fellowship programs administered by the three federal research funding agencies – the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – have been streamlined into a new harmonized talent program called the Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS) that will open for applications in summer 2025.
www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca

Reposted by Eric J. Steig

Skillful weather forecasting, along with the increased preparedness it allows, is a landmark achievement of not only the US but of the human race. There are few other fields in the sciences where skillful prediction has had such an immense impact on our society.
www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar...
RealClimate: We need NOAA now more than ever
RealClimate: Guest commentary by Robert Hart, Kerry Emanuel, & Lance Bosart The National Weather Service (NWS) and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA), deliver...
www.realclimate.org
Friendly reminder: if you are waiting on something from a US-based scientist/reviewer/editor, please realize that we're barely making it through each day putting out non-stop fires and trying not to collapse into tears. We're trying our best, but things will take longer right now. Give grace.

Pleased to announce the publication of the study led by Ben Hills on crystal fabric at Hercules Dome, Antarctica.
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Radar‐Derived Crystal Orientation Fabric Suggests Dynamic Stability at the Summit of Hercules Dome
We constrain present and past ice dynamics at Hercules Dome, East Antarctica, using measurements of ice flow and crystal orientation fabric (COF) We find evidence of divide flow in both vertical ...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Yes, but you are not giong to pretend that eating organic granola will solve the problem.

Prediction: Other countries are going to require US citizens to have proof of various vaccinations which are currently not required because the US has previously been certified as a measles-free (meaning very very low incidence) country by the WHO. That certification will expire, and not be renewed.

"The US took nearly a century to craft its rich scientific ecosystem; if the unraveling that has taken place over the past month continues, Americans will feel the effects for decades to come."

www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/21/1...
The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled
Federal scientists warn that Americans could feel the effects of the new administration's devastating cuts for decades to come.
www.technologyreview.com

That's a wierd title. NOAA *scientists* most certainly would not have "refused to kink warming weather to climate change." Trump-appointed non-scientists, yeah, I'm sure they did refuse.

"The federal civilian worker payroll totaled $271 billion in 2022. The annual cost of extending Trump's tax cuts that primarily benefited the rich? $400 billion. Keep this in mind as Trump and Elon lay off thousands of federal workers." -- former United States Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich.

Yes, yes it would. (The risk is, of course, that the Supreme Court would ulimately decide, and they sycophant are in the majority.)

Was that a *directive* or a suggestion?

Pity is the sentiment I feel most.

My anger is reserved for the folks (e.g. each and every Republican senator, including the “moderates”) who could have ended this madness four years ago, and still could.
I've been encountering over the past few days the claim that the planet is warming twice as fast as predicted. This is entirely untruthful and unhelpful.
The planet is warming AS fast as predicted, which is cause enough for dramatic action.

The truth is bad enough!

Can refugees from the US, with 30+ years experience, apply?

Not to suggest that any of this is okay, but I think that accuracy about what is happening is criticially important.

Broader Impacts, including efforts at diversifying the scientific workforce, are part of US Law governing the NSF. (I just learned this today). However, I think we're just speculating about which words will cause "offsense", and that grants will be "canceled" if they have the wrong words.

Reposted by Eric J. Steig

It would be fantastic if major federal institutions would acknowledge that the executive branch cannot legally unilaterally cancel or redistribute congressionally appropriated funding on ideological grounds and thus they have no legal obligation to comply with such directives
Trump funding freeze a blatant violation of Constitution, federal law: Legal experts
The Constitution, federal law and court decisions make it clear: President Donald Trump's order to pause federal funding is against the law, legal experts tell ABC News.
abcnews.go.com

Reposted by Eric J. Steig

Our paper on the 2023 S. Lhonak GLOF & multihazard cascade, out today in Science!

This ‘natural’ hazard had the fingerprints of human activity all over it: climate change, glacier retreat, permafrost degradation, and hydropower dam breach.

Read here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reposted by Eric J. Steig

🔥New paper alert! 🔥🧪❄️🥼

Ever wondered what to consider when drilling through an ice sheet into rock? We take you through how we chose a drill site in West #Antarctica using field observations, samples, radar survey, modelling & satellite imagery.
tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/... @bas.ac.uk

🧵1/n
Assessing the suitability of sites near Pine Island Glacier for subglacial bedrock drilling aimed at detecting Holocene retreat–readvance
Abstract. Unambiguous identification of past episodes of ice sheet thinning below the modern surface and grounding line retreat inboard of present requires recovery and exposure dating of subglacial b...
tc.copernicus.org

Of course. But it doesn't change the fact that the way that corporations and educational institutions have approached "DEI" contributed in a non-neglibable way to Trump's win. Exclusionary and coercive politics under the guise of "expertise" doesn't work.

Important paper in Nature today about collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. There is a positive isotope anomaly at Skytrain Ice Rise during the last interglacial, consistent with what we found in our high-resolution water-isotope simulations when WAIS collapses.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The Ronne Ice Shelf survived the last interglacial - Nature
Sea salt data from an ice core record show that Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf survived the last interglacial, the last period of enhanced and sustained global warmth about 125,000 years ago.
www.nature.com

Derek Muir! A leader in showing the world about organic pollutants in the Arctic.