James Doss-Gollin
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jdossgollin.bsky.social
James Doss-Gollin
@jdossgollin.bsky.social
1.9K followers 700 following 170 posts
Assistant prof @ Rice CEVE. New Haven kid in Houston, husband, dad, romanista, albirrojo. I study and simulate hydroclimate risks to enable adaptive, efficient, and resilient infrastructure.

https://dossgollin-lab.github.io
https://ai4climaterrr.rice.edu
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jdossgollin.bsky.social
My favorite thing about Thanksgiving week is that all the companies who’s crap I need to unsubscribe from hopefully send me multiple reminders
November 26, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
crispapoll.bsky.social
Our free and open source software for estimating property level flood risk under uncertainty now has a peer reviewed software paper!

We would love your thoughts for improvement and contributions! github.com/abpoll/unsafe

@jdossgollin.bsky.social @vsrikrish.bsky.social
joss-openjournals.bsky.social Journal of Open Source Software @joss-openjournals.bsky.social · 13d
Just published in JOSS: 'UNSAFE: An UNcertain Structure And Fragility Ensemble framework for property-level flood risk estimation' https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.07527
November 13, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
betanalpha.bsky.social
On Wed, Dec 10 I am offering a comprehensive introduction to Bayesian regression modeling, with exercises in both RStan and PyStan, at a steep discount in an effort to raise funds for World Central Kitchen and United Farm Workers. For registration details see betanalpha.github.io/courses/.
Courses
betanalpha.github.io
October 27, 2025 at 12:33 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
There seems to be very little coverage, but Hurricane Melissa is about to do terrible damage to millions of people.

gdacs.org/report.aspx?...
October 27, 2025 at 2:25 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
Climate risk models require DEEP expertise to use well. It is easier every day to download some black-box risk estimate for your house/community/portfolio. However, the common mindset of "some data is better than no data" can lead to trouble!
kellyhereid.bsky.social Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · Oct 24
Absolutely fantastic study comparing anonymized outputs of climate analytics models.

Everyone loves to bag on flood (rightly so), but can we talk about how the spread here is "30mph breeze to Cat 5 hurricane" www.fca.org.uk/publication/... HT @ruarirhodes.bsky.social
Assessing future cyclone speeds at the same location across climate analytics vendors. For the same spot, high risk properties range from sub-tropical storm to Cat 5.
October 24, 2025 at 6:57 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
Thanks to everyone who is out (on behalf of all of us knocked out by daycare germs) to demand and defend accountability, transparency, democracy, and the very concept of morality.
October 18, 2025 at 7:56 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
I literally only use this app to grumble
Man taking a stand in a town hall meeting saying "resiliency is not a real word"
September 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
I knew having kids would change my life, but I wasn’t ready for Spotify to pack my recommendations with 98% white noise and nature sounds
September 19, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
iopp-environment.bsky.social
📊New research published in #ERCL - in the 'Focus on #ClimateChange Informed Catastrophe Modeling to Support #ClimateRisk Management'

🌧️Bayesian spatiotemporal nonstationary model quantifies robust increases in daily extreme rainfall across the Western Gulf Coast: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
September 11, 2025 at 3:43 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
Broke: I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing

Woke: I want AI to fill out when2meet / doodle / calendly polls so that I can complain about bad papers on social media
September 9, 2025 at 3:57 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
Controversial take: every statistical analysis you do doesn’t need to be an R package.

Packages should be infrastructure and set a very high bar of software engineering for them. To disseminate your analysis, just make some well documented templates and tutorials
September 8, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
kevinjkircher.com
What a clear, concise summary of the state and potential of renewable energy technologies. I particularly like how @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social includes the fact that nearly two-thirds of primary energy gets wasted today. Burning fossil fuels is a very inefficient way to provide useful services.
Screenshot of a paragraph about fossil fuels and wasted energy: "As the Rocky Mountain Institute explains it: “Today, most energy is wasted along the way. Out of the 606 EJ [exajoules] of primary energy that entered the global energy system in 2019, some 33% (196 EJ) was lost on the supply side due to energy production and transportation losses before it ever reached a consumer. Another 30% (183 EJ) was lost on the demand side turning final energy into useful energy. That means that of the 606 EJ we put into our energy system per annum, only 227 EJ ended up providing useful energy, like heating a home or moving a truck. That is only 37% efficient overall.” That’s the old system, and it’s dirty, toxic to human health and the environment – and our politics – as well as the main driver of climate chaos. And wasteful."
August 1, 2025 at 4:39 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
How exciting is research according to...
July 29, 2025 at 4:35 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
Grumpy take: you cannot just write in your methods section "we used X software", you should cite and note the software but you still need to explain what the software is doing and why it's a good choice
July 25, 2025 at 8:14 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
Talk about a profoundly shredded moral fabric
July 23, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
aweiss.bsky.social
This country won't get serious about climate change until we're honest about flood and fire risk and insurance to match.

Imagine if Camp Mystic had been required to carry liability insurance in the event that its campers were flood victims. Those cabins would have been moved years ago.
Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic’s buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counselors, a review by The Associated Press found. The Federal Emergency Management Agency included the prestigious girls’ summer camp in a “Special Flood Hazard Area” in its National Flood Insurance map for Kerr County in 2011, which means it was required to have flood insurance and faced tighter regulation on any future construction projects. FEMA exempted buildings at old and new sites In response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area. Records show that those buildings were part of the 99-year-old Camp Mystic Guadalupe, which was devastated by last week’s flood. After further appeals, FEMA removed 15 more Camp Mystic structures in 2019 and 2020 from the designation. Those buildings were located on nearby Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, a sister site that opened to campers in 2020 as part of a major expansion and suffered less damage in the flood.
July 13, 2025 at 5:21 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
I understand everyone wants to cover the tragedy, but I would MUCH PREFER to be part of a public discussion of flood warning systems and safety BEFORE the next horrific disaster happens than AFTER.

As long we remain uncomfortable with proactive safety measures, people will keep dying.
July 10, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
lvulis.bsky.social
Early warning systems work. Early warning systems are crucial. This camp lost no one. See next skeet for quote. apnews.com/article/texa...
Quick action by one Texas summer camp leads to timely evacuations ahead of deadly flood
One local summer camp in the path of the disastrous flooding in central Texas was able to avoid any loss of life by closely monitoring weather reports.
apnews.com
July 8, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
weatherwest.bsky.social
But this does illustrate a few tragic and uncomfortable truths. The first is that even quite good weather forecasts do not automatically translate into life-saving predictions--there's a lot of other work that has to take place to contextualize the forecast and ensure it gets to right people.
July 5, 2025 at 3:50 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
#Flood modelers: lots of chatter RE soil profiles in "flash flood alley". Do we really think floods would have been meaningfully different if you dropped that much rain on those hills, but they had more/deeper topsoils? Of course the effect is not zero, but not convinced it's big.
July 8, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
mattlanza.bsky.social
Based on some of the reactions and comments I am absorbing by average people and elected officials, I think there needs to be a serious explanation and lesson on what the limits of predictability are for floods like the one in Texas.
July 5, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
crispapoll.bsky.social
And don’t remove observational capacities and cut funding to weather forecasting agencies and then blame them for “faulty” forecasts!
July 5, 2025 at 2:47 PM
jdossgollin.bsky.social
Horrific things are happening along the Guadalupe River right now. Absolutely devastating for the families of everyone missing.

I'm skeptical that we're going to build our way out of experiencing major flooding with 15+" rain on hilly terrain. Instead, we need...
July 5, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
radosh.bsky.social
I feel like I'm losing my mind. Here is the transcript of what Zohran Mamdani actually said about the phrase "globalize the intifada." This is his "refusal to disavow it." This is what has people terrified. Just fucking read it.

Source: podscripts.co/podcasts/the...
Q: So I wonder what you think about that, about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and what we've seen as some anti-semitism coming from the left-wing protesters. A: The first thing as you were saying is anti-semitism is a real issue in our city and it's one that can be captured in statistics, the ones that you're citing. It's also one that you will feel in conversations you have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine after the horrific war crime of October 7th. He was telling me that he went for Shabbat services at his temple and he was facing forward when he heard the door open. And he turned back with a chill going up his spine because he didn't know who was coming in. And that's more than a year ago. And then just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that the same door he would keep unlocked for decades is one that he now locks out of a fear of what could happen in his own neighborhood. And I think that this is something that has to be the focus of the next mayoral administration, is not just talking about it, but tackling it. And these are the conversations that have informed our commitment around increasing funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800% in our Department of Community Safety. To the question of language that's being used. I am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words and that I think it is more evocative of a Trump style approach to how to lead a country. And- Q: Does that just make you uncomfortable? Like the phrase globalizing intifada. And like the phrase from the river to the sea, does that make you uncomfortable? Or do you think- A: Okay, those are different. Those are super different. Q: They're not really. A: Those are like different genres. Q: I'm sorry, I'm asking so wrong. Then they're not really different to me. And to some people they are not different. A: I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic because it's a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post-911, I'm all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning. And I think that's where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe. And the question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven't ventured.
June 26, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by James Doss-Gollin
voosen.me
My latest feature is out: As the world has warmed, the regional flaws of climate models have grown apparent. Meanwhile, methods to localize the results of models have proliferated.

It all leads to lots of uncertainty -- within a very certain global trend. And cities need answers now.
Local predictions of climate change are hazy. But cities need answers fast
Scientists are figuring out where “downscaled” climate models struggle—and how they can be improved
www.science.org
June 5, 2025 at 6:41 PM