Rob Larter
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polarrobs.bsky.social
Rob Larter
@polarrobs.bsky.social
2.3K followers 890 following 1.1K posts
Polar marine scientist. UK Science Lead in Science Coordination Office of International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. Views are my own.
On Mastodon @PoLaRobs@fediscience.org
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polarrobs.bsky.social
Rob Larter @polarrobs.bsky.social · Oct 26
🧪🧵 Future change to #ThwaitesGlacier, Antarctica constitutes the largest uncertainty in #sea-level rise forecasts. The Science Coordination Office of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration recently issued a briefing document summarising some key findings - thwaitesglacier.org/findings
Image showing front page of briefing document
polarrobs.bsky.social
🧵 If warming continues to 3°C above pre-industrial we will have crossed a number of tipping points. Droughts in some regions and extreme rainfall in others will result in widespread crop failures and global food shortages.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘Daunting but doable’: Europe urged to prepare for 3C of global heating
Advisory board member says adapting is ‘not rocket science’ but Europe already paying price for lack of preparation
www.theguardian.com
February 18, 2026 at 8:02 AM
polarrobs.bsky.social
Day 7 of my voyage to the #Antarctic Peninsula on the #tallship #BarkEuropa: an exploration of a narrow channel between Spert and Trinity islands in small boats, weaving between numerous icebergs and growlers.
#BusmansHoliday
View along ice-choked channel between Spert Island (left) and Trinity Island (right), with sheer cliffs of dark, volcanic rocks on either side. Two small boats with members of voyage crew on board weaving between growlers and brash ice in the narrow channel between Spert Island and Trinity Island. The dark ciff in the background is on Trinity Island. A cluster of icebergs in the mouth of the channel between Spert and Trinity islands contasts strongly with a dark sky. View looking back to Bark Europa (centre right of image) from one of the zodiac boats, with mountains on the mainland of Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula in the distance.
February 15, 2026 at 11:08 PM
polarrobs.bsky.social
🧵 Great article in Bild about our recent voyage to the #Antarctic Peninsula on the #tallship Bark Europa by one of the other members of the 'voyage crew', and my colleague on Red Watch, Nioclás Seeliger.

m.bild.de/leben-wissen...
Antarktis auf die harte Tour: Wo sich die Pinguine Gute Nacht sagen
Unter Segeln ins Eis! Nioclás Seeliger segelt mit einem Dreimaster noch einmal in die Antarktis, vorbei am legendären Kap Hoorn, und kam verändert zurück
m.bild.de
February 15, 2026 at 3:34 PM
polarrobs.bsky.social
#Cranes at Willow Tree Fen, Lincolnshire today.
A crane walking from right to left in the image in front of a pond. Two cranes walking from right to left in the image in front of a pond. Two cranes flying away from the viewer over areas of vegetation of different kinds. A crane flying from right to left in the image over a pond, with a second crane standing on the far bank of the pond and three cows grazing in the background towards the left of the image.
February 14, 2026 at 11:50 PM
polarrobs.bsky.social
Specially for today.
#Antarctica #iceberg #tallship ##BarkEuropa
The bow of the tallship Bark Europa is viewed through a heart-shaped window in an iceberg that fills most of the image. In the background is a rocky slope on the far side of the fjord.
February 14, 2026 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Rob Larter
theguardian.com
If you want to know what Reform would be like in power, look at how it threatened Bangor University | Gaby Hinsliff
If you want to know what Reform would be like in power, look at how it threatened Bangor University | Gaby Hinsliff
A debating society didn’t want to invite two figures connected to the party to speak. Cue an authoritarian response, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
www.theguardian.com
February 13, 2026 at 6:47 AM
Reposted by Rob Larter
bberwyn.bsky.social
New paper warns of cascading tipping points that could lead Earth to a cycle of self-sustaining warming—a dangerous 'hothouse Earth' trajectory.
insideclimatenews.org/news/1102202...
Accelerated Global Warming Could Lock Earth Into a Hothouse Future - Inside Climate News
Scientists say warming is increasing faster than at any time in at least 3 million years. There is no guide for what comes next.
insideclimatenews.org
February 12, 2026 at 6:59 AM
polarrobs.bsky.social
bbc.com/news/article...
I hope I'm just missing something, but one thing I'm not hearing in talk about this new approach to science funding is that improving understanding of climate and environmental change is essential to effective planning of adaptation.
UK’s £8bn research fund faces “hard decisions” as it pauses new grants
UKRI boss Ian Chapman said it had been told by the government to "focus and do fewer things better".
bbc.com
February 6, 2026 at 5:39 PM
polarrobs.bsky.social
Day 1 of my voyage to the #Antarctic Peninsula on the #tallship #BarkEuropa: departing from #Ushuaia and sailing east along the Beagle Channel.
#BusmansHoliday
Looking back to the port of Ushuaia, nestled beneath snow-capped hills with calm water in the foreground Looking astern across the poop deck of Bark Europa with a line of hills in the distance beyond the calm waters of the Beagle Channel Looking forward from the poop deck of Bark Europa as the ship travels through calm water in the Beagle Channel. On the right of the image there are the ship's masts, rigging and furled sails. In the upper left a line of hills in Tierra del Fuego are seen lining the north side of the Beagle Channel. Looking out towards the mouth of the Beagle Channel with the bowsprit of Bark Europa in the foreground
February 5, 2026 at 1:14 AM
polarrobs.bsky.social
🧵 This is the vessel I will be spending the next two and a half weeks aboard, travelling from Ushuaia to the Antarctic Peninsula and back. With an overall length of 56 m, which includes the bowsprit, the Bark Europa is smaller than any vessel I have ventured out into the Southern Ocean on before.
January 17, 2026 at 7:05 PM
polarrobs.bsky.social
#Ushuaia, on the Beagle Channel. The southernmost port in #Argentina and the departure point for my forthcoming trip to sea.
A small port town is seen in the centre of the frame nestled in among some picturesque mountains, which still have some snow patches near their summits. In the foreground there is an expanse of calm water (part of the Beagle Channel)
January 14, 2026 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Rob Larter
bigearthdata.ai
Satellites reveal rapidly intensifying ice loss at Earth's poles
->Earth.com | More from Lil Dr Glen EcoChat at BigEarthData.ai
Satellites reveal rapidly intensifying ice loss at Earth's poles
Satellite data show that polar ice sheets don’t crack or collapse all at once. Most of the time, they slide – slowly and relentlessly. Every day, massive rivers of ice creep from the centers of Greenland and Antarctica toward the...
www.earth.com
January 13, 2026 at 2:13 AM
Reposted by Rob Larter
copernicusecmwf.bsky.social
The global warming trend continued in 2025. Each of the past 11 years (2015–2025) has been among the 11 warmest on record. Explore more data from #CopernicusClimate in the Global Climate Highlights 2025. #GCH2025

🔗 climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

@ecmwf.int
January 14, 2026 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Rob Larter
timosbornclim.bsky.social
Most 2025 global temperatures are now out (degrees C above 1850-1900 baseline)

1.41 HadCRUT5
1.44 Berkeley
1.46 JRA-3Q
1.47 Copernicus
1.53 DCENT-I

NOAA and NASA GISS values will be public at 2pm UK time and but based on already public Jan-Nov data they will likely be between 1.3 and 1.4 degC.
Multi-dataset comparison of global temperatures from 1850-2025, with 2025 values highlighted in a separate panel for each individual dataset. Baseline is a combination of 1850-1900 means.
January 14, 2026 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Rob Larter
drsimevans.carbonbrief.org
The utterly shameless & widely covered "report" out today, claiming net zero will "cost" £9tn is based on:

* Assuming free fossil-fuel energy, free petrol cars, free gas boilers, free gas power plants etc

AND

* Including climate damages in the "cost" of net zero

I kid you not, it is that stupid
drsimevans.carbonbrief.org Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · Jan 12
🧵A political/media guide to the "truth" about net-zero

1) Add up costs to install & run a net-zero energy system
2) Pretend fossil-fuelled alternatives wld be free
3) Do say "eco zealots are bankrupting us"
4) Don't say "free cars if we scrap net-zero" cos it sounds ridiculous
5) That's it!

1/10
January 13, 2026 at 7:37 AM
Reposted by Rob Larter
bmcnoldy.bsky.social
This is one of my favorite ways to visualize #SeaLevelRise...

With another year of verified water levels at Key West behind us now (as of today), here's the updated version of this chart I've been making for the past decade or so. 🧪🌊

[1/3]
"Heatmap" chart showing the number of hours per day from 1913-2025 that the water level spent above the mean high tide (using the current 1983-2001 epoch) at Key West FL.
January 13, 2026 at 12:40 AM
Reposted by Rob Larter
jamesgdyke.info
For those unable to access the Boston Globe article...
www.technosphere.earth/we-cant-just...
We can't just burn carbon now and suck it out of the atmosphere later
Tree-planting programs, seaweed plantations, and fantastical engineering projects won't save us.
www.technosphere.earth
January 12, 2026 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Rob Larter
adambienkov.bsky.social
Reform UK, which says it represents “change” from Conservative failures, has so far accepted defections from:

- A disgraced Tory minister sacked for tax-dodging
- Disgraced Tory vice chairman suspended for racism
- Disgraced former minister suspended for abandoning constituents for a reality TV gig
January 12, 2026 at 12:45 PM
polarrobs.bsky.social
How embarrassing it would be for him if lots of people reposted that.
kevinschofied.bsky.social Kevin Schofield @kevinschofied.bsky.social · Jan 12
Amazingly, Zahawi only got round to deleting the below after the press conference announcing his defection to Reform.
January 12, 2026 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Rob Larter
bearlypolitics.co.uk
This is especially bad news for Leila Cunningham who has been put forward as Reform UK’s Mayoral Candidate (two and half years ahead of the election), and rather punctures her message that we Londoners must be “pitied.”

Brilliant work by our current mayor, @london.gov.uk.

🐻
russellengland.bsky.social Russell England @russellengland.bsky.social · Jan 12
"London’s homicide rate drops to lowest in more than a decade

Sadiq Khan says ‘public health’ approach has made the capital one of the safest cities in the western world"

Bad news for the right whingers
London’s homicide rate drops to lowest in more than a decade
Sadiq Khan says ‘public health’ approach has made the capital one of the safest cities in the western world
www.theguardian.com
January 12, 2026 at 6:56 AM
polarrobs.bsky.social
🧵Preparing for one more #Antarctic trip. I have been "South" 22 times before, but this is going to be very different from any previous expedition. I have visited the point of departure once before, but that was more than 20 years ago.
Photo showing a line of snow-capped hills under a grey sky with an expanse of calm water in the foreground
January 11, 2026 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Rob Larter
bearlypolitics.co.uk
With the growing outrage about the government being a tyranny because they’re considering shutting down X, which recently started producing non-consensual sexual images of women and children not as a bug, but as a feature, it’s worth asking - why?

What do they gain from X?

I think I know why.
They Say They "Protect Women and Children". X Paid Them Nearly £68,000
Four MPs. 691 hours. A platform facilitating abuse. And a silence that tells you everything.
open.substack.com
January 11, 2026 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Rob Larter
seismatters.bsky.social
I've been sitting on this for over a month...but given how cross I am with @royalsociety.org at their ongoing inaction over #Elon #Musk I thought I'd share this.

They invited me to serve on their Public Engagement Committee; I could have been more eloquent, but I had to give a firm "no"...
January 9, 2026 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Rob Larter
owasow.bsky.social
“Mr. Trump’s policies are helping ‘to create a world without America,’ said Robert Z. Lawrence, a professor of international trade and investment at Harvard. And ‘it’s not only in trade,’ he added.” Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/b...
E.U. and South America to Form Free-Trade Zone With 700 Million People
www.nytimes.com
January 9, 2026 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Rob Larter
wellner.bsky.social
Considering @scar-antarctic.bsky.social this summer in Oslo? We are soliciting submissions for Session S13: Past, present, and future of Antarctic marine grounded basins. See scar2026.org for meeting details. @polarrobs.bsky.social @deformedearth.bsky.social and more are co-chairs. 🧪❄️
Home | SCAR open science conference
scar2026.org
January 9, 2026 at 4:44 AM