Kevin Anchukaitis
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thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis
@thirstygecko.bsky.social
4.2K followers 660 following 430 posts

Climate scientist, paleoclimatologist, dendrochronologist, University of Arizona | https://kanchukaitis.github.io/ | Opinions are mine and not that of my employer

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Environmental science 51%
Geology 21%
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thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 11h
Of course, Douglass went on not only to found the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, but was also the first Director of the Steward Observatory and played the major role in getting it funded and built

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 11h
A.E. Douglass (founder of the science of dendrochronology) got fired by Percival Lowell for questioning the existence of 'canals' on Mars. Douglass was out of science for many years before getting a position at the University of Arizona. He would be expected to teach physics & physical geography:

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Philip Nel, David R. Miller , and 4 more

dansinker.com
dan sinker @dansinker.com · 1d
How about we shut down the government for this very popular and specific goal and then, hear me out, we hold out for like a month and a half and then, ok this part is important, after a watershed election where we ran the table, ONLY THEN, fold and don't get the one thing we said we wanted.

Reposted by Anne Applebaum, Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio , and 17 more

thedailyshow.com
The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 3d
New York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

climate.columbia.edu
Columbia Climate School @climate.columbia.edu · 3d
Researchers say sudden, short-lived droughts in New England may become more frequent, putting farms, grasslands and water supply systems at risk, writes Columbia Climate School MA Climate & Society student @ryankrugman.bsky.social. Via @insideclimatenews.org.
Another Dry Spell Hits New England, Raising Alarm About Flash Droughts - Inside Climate News
Researchers say sudden, short-lived droughts in the region may become more frequent, putting farms, grasslands and water supply systems at risk.
insideclimatenews.org

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Catherine J. Frieman

nature.com
Nature @nature.com · 3d
Scientists feel that the pressure to publish is rising, but that the time and resources they have to do the necessary research are falling, according to a survey of 3,200 researchers

go.nature.com/4hNDvuN
Pressure to publish is rising as research time shrinks, finds survey of scientists
Researchers feel that pressures to publish are increasing, but the time and resources available to do research are decreasing, according to a survey by Elsevier.
go.nature.com

Reposted by Neil Pederson

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 4d
Cool use of a clumped isotopologue in wood! - Isotopic evidence for elevated photorespiration during the last glacial period www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Isotopic evidence for elevated photorespiration during the last glacial period - Nature Geoscience
Low carbon dioxide levels during the last glacial period enhanced photorespiration in trees across North America, indicating a decline in land plant productivity, according to measurements of clumped ...
www.nature.com

Reposted by Peter Thorne, Du Toit, Kevin J. Anchukaitis

edhawkins.org
Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 4d
Should we start historical climate simulations in 1750 (or 1800) rather than 1850?

Importance of beginning industrial-era climate simulations in the eighteenth century

Ballinger, Schurer et al.: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Robert C. Richards, Anastasia Salter , and 1 more

tessahill.bsky.social
Tessa Hill @tessahill.bsky.social · 5d
A devastating set of decisions on the part of UC leadership to withdraw support from our nationally recognized postdoc program that prioritizes research excellence combined with addressing our university public service mission. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program
Established in 1984 to encourage women and minority Ph.D.s to pursue academia, the program has attracted right-wing criticism for prioritizing diverse candidates.
www.insidehighered.com

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Daniel W. Drezner , and 3 more

climatebrad.hillheat.com
Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · 6d
Goddard spacecraft engineer: "I think it just kind of speaks to the atmosphere of the agency and the nation, where people are like, 'Well, laws don't matter for the people at the top anymore.'"
NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown — and may be breaking the law in the process, critics say
"There is just a general acknowledgement that a lot of what is happening is illegal…"
www.space.com

Reposted by Adam H. Sobel, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Christina Pagel

zacklabe.com
Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 7d
"But perhaps the most consequential long-term loss for federal science is that of institutional knowledge and expertise — and the downstream effects on the training of early-career researchers."

"We lost people with decades of experience and everyone who was very early career, ...”
Dismantling of US federal agencies will ‘destroy science’
From NASA to the National Institutes of Health, federal agencies conduct research that universities cannot. Agency scientists speak out about the irreplaceable facilities, institutional knowledge and ...
www.nature.com

Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Adam H. Sobel, Benjamin I. Cook , and 4 more

climatefran.bsky.social
ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social · 7d
🚨The Moore Lab at UC Davis is hiring!🚨
Post-doc for a project with @adamsobel.bsky.social on the valuation of climate information for adaptation
Could be a good fit for an environmental economist or a climate scientist - flexible start date and location
Apply by Dec 1st: recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07346
Postdoctoral Scholar - Environmental Science & Policy
University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!
recruit.ucdavis.edu

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Greg Linden

profamymcgovern.bsky.social
Amy McGovern @profamymcgovern.bsky.social · 8d
Yes, it is this scary in science. We were world leader only 10 months ago.

www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...
Top researchers consider leaving U.S. amid funding cuts: 'The science world is ending'
A poll from the journal Nature found that 75% of researchers in the U.S. are considering leaving the country. That includes a man who’s been dubbed the "Mozart of Math." Stephanie Sy examines what’s b...
www.pbs.org

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 10d
From where I’m sitting at our neighborhood mescal bar I can’t see the ghost singing karaoke because there are 2 sentient mushrooms, several cowboys, an alien, a sad clown, and a hamburger in the way

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

michaelsderby.bsky.social
Michael Derby @michaelsderby.bsky.social · 10d
The president is spending quite a bit of time on renovations to public property he personally uses while millions are about to lose food assistance and the government is shut down.
Toilet

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 11d
Nice analyses by Eden Markovitz and Nathan Steiger on recent persistent drought for Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Indeed, the island had one of the more severe future drying trends in our 2016 paper (Karnauskas et al. www.nature.com/articles/ncl...) agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

hdaigle.bsky.social
Hugh Daigle @hdaigle.bsky.social · 12d
i don’t know how to cross-post this from FB but this is absolutely heartbreaking. The age of scientific ocean discovery we were brought up in is gone & will never come back. I can’t.

Reposted by Darío Martin‐Benito, Joan Dudney

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 13d
Dr. Julie Edwards (@julieedtree.bsky.social) leads a new paper showing that high-resolution cellular-scale measurements (Quantitative Wood Anatomy) yield better temperature signals in Alaskan tree rings than even conventional MXD across all frequencies agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
Resolution and Frequency‐Dependent Climate Signals in an Arctic Tree‐Ring Temperature Reconstruction of the Last Millennium
Tree-ring density measurement resolution affects low-frequency trends in temperature reconstructions High-resolution anatomical maximum latewood density has stronger correlations with instrumenta...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe, Kevin J. Anchukaitis

jsmankin.bsky.social
Justin S. Mankin @jsmankin.bsky.social · 13d
Exciting postdoc opening @dartmouthartsci.bsky.social! Work at the intersection of climate science, heat impacts, and risk management with Klaus Keller (engineering) and me. Apply here,
apply.interfolio.com/176582
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

wslresearch.bsky.social
WSL Umweltforschung @wslresearch.bsky.social · 13d
🪵🌧️☀️ #PostDoc Alert! PhD in #EnvironmentalSciences, #EarthSciences, or a related field? Experience with #treering and #climatic data and skilled in data visualisation? Our Research Group #Dendrosciences offers a 1-year PostDoc position: apply.refline.ch/273855/1790/... #ScienceJobs #ecology
Job offer: Post-doc in Tree-Ring Ecology 80-100% (f/m/d) As part of the EU project OptFORESTS – Harnessing forest genetic resources for increasing options in the face of environmental and societal challenges, you will contribute to achieving long-term goals related to tackling climate change and natural disasters while maintaining or enhancing forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. Your work will focus on the analysis of common-garden tree-ring width and density data from various species and provenances across Europe. In particular, you will identify differences in tree-ring density profiles and explore their environmental and genetic drivers. This work will support the project’s goal of enhancing the diversity of forest genetic resources in use and conservation by defining indicators of fitness, resilience, and wood properties in common garden trials. You will join an enthusiastic and collaborative team that includes leading researchers in dendrochronology and forest genetics. The position is based at WSL within the Dendrosciences group, a globally recognised centre for tree-ring science. Collaboration with international research partners is expected and encouraged. Applicants should hold a PhD in Environmental Sciences, Earth Sciences, or a related field, and ideally have experience with tree-ring and climatic data. You should be skilled in data analysis and visualisation using R or Python, and motivated to publish your results in scientific journals. A strong interest in applied interdisciplinary and international research is expected, as well as a structured, efficient, and independent working style combined with good communication skills and team spirit. Excellent command of written and spoken English is required.

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 15d
The idea that we somehow understand, or are likely to do so in the near future, even remotely how to dial in a particular magnitude of surface temperature change -- let alone rainfall -- is just not realistic (that's me being nice). 2/2

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 15d
My issue with SRM, leaving aside the equity and governance issues (which are IMO insurmountable), is that most (all?) of the research on SRM is based in models which struggle to agree on how even relatively recent volcanic events (our only albeit quite imperfect analog) affect surface climate. 1/2

Reposted by Michael E. Mann, A. E. Dessler, Peter Thorne , and 2 more

blairfix.bsky.social
Blair Fix @blairfix.bsky.social · 15d
In a 2024 paper criticizing the 'billion-dollar-disasters' database, Roger Pielke Jr. published analysis that is best described as a Russian-doll of errors.

Here's my in-depth take down of his appallingly bad work.

economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/10/26/r...
Roger Pielke Jr.’s Appallingly Bad Analysis of Billion Dollar Disasters – Economics from the Top Down
In a recent paper called Scientific integrity and U.S. “Billion Dollar Disasters”, Roger Pielke Jr. published a chart that's so bad I've devoted a whole essay to debunking it.
economicsfromthetopdown.com

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 16d
Mercado morning with Xavier

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

thearchcons.org
The Archaeological Conservancy @thearchcons.org · 17d
CAHOKIA, ILLINOIS — Using tree-ring radiocarbon from an A.D. 994 solar event, researchers precisely dated the Mitchell Log—Greater Cahokia’s largest known marker post—to about A.D. 1124, and strontium isotopes show the bald cypress wasn’t local, likely hauled ≥112 miles.

Read more:
Age and origin of a Cahokian wooden monument at the Mitchell site, Illinois, USA
Cahokia was the first and largest precolonial city outside of Mesoamerica in what is now the United States. Monuments and exotic goods were central to public life at Cahokia, but no high-resolution…
buff.ly

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

kellyhereid.bsky.social
Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · 17d
This paper w @katemac.bsky.social @sarahinscience.bsky.social and crew is a few years old now, but it predicted where we've gotten to, where the overwhelming pressure to "just get a number" out of a black box ecosystem of providers gets you essentially gibberish.
Business risk and the emergence of climate analytics - Nature Climate Change
Assessing future climate-related financial risk requires knowledge of how the climate will change at various spatial and temporal scales. This Perspective examines the demand for climate information f...
www.nature.com

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Gernot Wagner

climate.columbia.edu
Columbia Climate School @climate.columbia.edu · 18d
Real-world engineering, logistical, and political constraints of SAI—a method proposed to mitigate global warming—could make it far riskier and more expensive than expected, finds a new study by Columbia's Miranda Hack, @vfmcneill.bsky.social, @steingart.bsky.social, @gwagner.com. Via @gizmodo.com.
Dimming the Sun Like a Volcano? This Climate Fix Could Backfire Horribly
Scientists are seriously considering mimicking volcanic eruptions to mitigate global warming, but that comes with more than a few issues.
gizmodo.com

thirstygecko.bsky.social
Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 18d
Non-Linear and Distinct Responses of Temperature and Precipitation to Volcanic Eruptions With Stratospheric Sulfur Injection From 5 to 160 Tg agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
Non‐Linear and Distinct Responses of Temperature and Precipitation to Volcanic Eruptions With Stratospheric Sulfur Injection From 5 to 160 Tg
The simulated climate response to eruptions becomes progressively non-linear as injected sulfur mass is increased from 5 to 160 TgS The surface temperature response saturates to about 1° of cooli...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Kevin J. Anchukaitis

eos.org
Eos @eos.org · 19d
When it comes to famous holes in the ground, northern Arizona has two: #GrandCanyon & #MeteorCrater. New research suggests that these famous depressions might, in fact, be linked.

New research from Karl Karlstrom @unm.edu, comments from John Spray @discoverunb.bsky.social

eos.org/articles/an-...
An Asteroid Impact May Have Led to Flooding near the Grand Canyon - Eos
There’s remarkable synchronicity between the timing of a paleolake in what is today Grand Canyon National Park and the formation of nearby Barringer Meteorite Crater.
eos.org

Reposted by Ben Bond‐Lamberty, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Karen R. Lips

nature.com
Nature @nature.com · 19d
Some doctoral programmes in the US are admitting no students at all amid uncertainty about federal science funding

go.nature.com/4o63boK
US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold
Some doctoral programmes are admitting no students at all amid uncertainty about federal science funding.
go.nature.com