Alyssa Stansfield
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astansfield.bsky.social
Alyssa Stansfield
@astansfield.bsky.social
Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah studying extreme weather and climate.
All opinions are my own
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
THE MAN IN THE RIVER

Once there was a wise man, who travelled to strange lands, and as he travelled, he came to the bank of a winding river. Edging the bank were houses, set at distances from one another. The wise man walked upstream, watching the slow current carry leaves and twigs past him.
January 11, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Stunning lenticular #cloud over Mt. Washington #NHwx today!
November 26, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
“I think most Americans would be stunned to learn that international adoptees have not all been automatically granted the same status as their U.S. parents. Several grown adoptees have already been deported, including individuals who came to the United States as infants”
A mother shares the terrifying reality that her internationally adopted son, raised in the U.S. since childhood, could be detained or deported by ICE because he was never granted citizenship. 35-70k adoptees remain in this legal limbo. Urge Congress to pass the PAAF Act. 🥚
I'm A U.S. Citizen. I'm Terrified My Adopted Son Will Be Snatched By ICE Due To A Heartbreaking Loophole.
"I lie awake at night worried that he’ll be snatched off the street and taken to a nightmarish prison in some other country, and I’ll never see him again."
www.huffpost.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
In honor of Larry Summers, I asked the female members of my college class (1987) to say if they had any experiences with sexual harassment by teachers/professors, back when this was tolerated as, I dunno, the cost of attending college, and OH MY GOD.
November 21, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
This is bad. How can any university hire people, build facilities, make any plans, if the funding can be arbitrarily removed on a whim from an agency? This goes far beyond currently disfavored topics.
Update on a significant development NIH grant terms.

On 10/1, a change to grant making regs went into effect that gives NIH more power to terminate grants for policy reasons.

But to use this power, new grant terms must include specific language. See @aniloza.bsky.social w/ the story from July.

1/
HHS devises legal playbook for future grant terminations, internal memo shows
Exclusive: HHS devises a legal playbook for future research grant terminations, an internal memo shows.
www.statnews.com
November 20, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Hurricane Melissa produced the fastest hurricane winds to be recorded by a dropsonde, verified by reviewing data at NSF NCAR! Hurricane Melissa’s 252 mph wind gust surpassed the previous record from Typhoon Megi over the Western Pacific in 2010, where a dropsonde measured wind gusts of 248 mph.
November 19, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Things that will get you kicked out of academia forever:
- taking maternity leave at the wrong time
- spending too much time with your kids
- reporting harassment
- not moving every 2-3 years
- taking a partner's job/preferences into account
- mouthing off before tenure
A guy makes ONE tiny mistake (has a years-long friendship with the world's worst sex trafficker; brags about sexually harassing colleagues; is racist; says women are stupid) and his whole LIFE is blown up (does slightly fewer speaking engagements; keeps teaching at #1 university)??!?!?!?!?!
So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism.

Got it.
November 18, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Exciting news! Student applications for paleoCAMP 2026 are open! Are you a graduate student working on any aspect of past climates or environments? Apply to be part of our 2-week summer school in the eastern Sierra Nevada! More details here: paleoclimate.camp/apply
Application — paleoCAMP
paleoclimate.camp
November 13, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Extreme weather can happen everywhere. And many extremes (not all!) are demonstrably getting worse with climate change.

This is not just a problem for a few places!
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 17d
Home insurance is getting less affordable, and less available, as insurers raise prices and pull back from areas with extreme weather. That's forcing families across the country to make tough choices. n.pr/47QGKwH
It's harder to get home insurance. That's changing communities across the U.S.
Home insurance is getting less affordable, and less available, as insurers raise prices and pull back from areas with extreme weather. That's forcing families across the country to make tough choices.
n.pr
November 12, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
a downside of Being Good At Things is that you get assigned so many Things that you eventually reach the point that you are now Bad At Things
November 12, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
University of Nebraska announced yesterday a final budget plan which if approved by regents would result in elimination of its earth and atmospheric sciences program. I worry that this is a sign of a trend that could damage the academic meteorology sector of the US. More: tinyurl.com/53b5f5j7
University of Nebraska pushes forward with plan to eliminate atmospheric sciences program
Record cold gives way to warmth and signs of an increasingly stormy pattern for western and central US
tinyurl.com
November 11, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
One of my science heroes, Joan Brugge, talks about how science funding cuts are slowing their work on breast cancer prevention--share this widely
www.facebook.com/60minutes/vi...
439K views · 15K reactions | Harvard researcher Joan Brugge says her work has the potential to prevent breast cancer, but she was notified last spring that her federal funding was terminated. “It was ...
Harvard researcher Joan Brugge says her work has the potential to prevent breast cancer, but she was notified last spring that her federal funding was terminated. “It was just like a gut punch. My...
www.facebook.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
The Vietnamese Bach Ma Mountain Peak station recorded one-day rainfall of 1,739 mm - close to the global one-day record and perhaps a new record for the northern hemisphere. It is part of a deluge Viet Nam has seen in October, shattering 35 precip records. e.vnexpress.net/news/news/en...
Vietnam sees 35 rainfall records broken in October - VnExpress International
Vietnam's northern and central regions saw a total of 35 rain records broken in October alone as two storms, Matmo and Fengshen, caused unprecedented downpours.
e.vnexpress.net
November 7, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Joe Rogan spent a whole podcast episode spouting climate misinformation. @dananuccitelli.bsky.social broke down the tactics Rogan and other climate deniers use so you can call them out when you hear them.
Five ways Joe Rogan misleads listeners about climate change  » Yale Climate Connections
Rogan exposes millions to climate denial. Let’s break down his tactics. 
yaleclimateconnections.org
November 7, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
THIS IS AMAZING. ALSO WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DID WE FORGET TO RUIN?
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women

🧵
November 6, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
The agency has already been irreparably damaged, capacity and culture destroyed, decades worth of experience shown the door. "NASA" is the strongest name brand in the world, a metonymy for our highest ideals as humans. It is being bulldozed by people who don't understand (or care) what we're losing.
After 13 years as the top federal workplace, NASA is facing an employee exodus and months of turmoil after deep budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration.

If fully implemented, the changes could reshape U.S. science for years.
NASA has lost thousands of workers. Here’s what that means for science.
Staffers told The Post about months of turmoil and sweeping changes that, if fully implemented, could transform NASA and American science beyond the Trump years.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Looking for a #PhD in #ClimateExtremes?
We are advertising a project attributing causes of recent #droughts using counter-factual storylines.
Based in #Edinburgh, working with Andrew Schurer, me, @gabihegerl.bsky.social, & @edhawkins.org
tinyurl.com/5n7b52fr
November 6, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
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…
November 4, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
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
November 4, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
"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
November 3, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Undergraduate opportunity! 📣 The NSF SOARS program is open for applications! SOARS is an undergrad-grad bridge program focusing on promoting and supporting research, mentoring, and community.

Learn more about eligibility and the app process:
ucar.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UCAR_C...
2026 NSF SOARS® First-Year Protege
Job Description Summary: UCAR is excited to announce the application opening of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program...
ucar.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
News: Another fed contract cancelation, this time by the FAA, looks to mean the loss of surface weather observations from dozens of sites, primarily in NC and MD. More: https://tinyurl.com/yp57f2ck
Another federal contract cancelation impacts weather data, with surface observations reduced in North Carolina and Maryland
Monday tropical deep dive focuses on the western Pacific
tinyurl.com
November 3, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
🚨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
November 3, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Alyssa Stansfield
Forrest Smith, the only National Park Service engineer cleaning up abandoned oil and gas wells, lost his contract, leaving 93 orphaned wells on park lands unmanaged. These leaking wells release methane and toxins, threatening human health and the environment.
He Alone Tracked Leaky Oil Wells in National Parks. He Was Let Go.
www.nytimes.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:58 AM