Michael Battalio
@battalio.com
Research Scientist at Yale studying planetary climates
Wow, this looks exactly like the five cyclones around Jupiter's South Pole.
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
October 29, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Wow, this looks exactly like the five cyclones around Jupiter's South Pole.
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
The full comments I wrote to the CNN writer. I'm delighted the part they pulled is about the broader usefulness of studying Mars.
October 8, 2025 at 7:26 PM
The full comments I wrote to the CNN writer. I'm delighted the part they pulled is about the broader usefulness of studying Mars.
Avi Loeb and I talk the importance of rigorous peer review before claiming aliens.
September 16, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Avi Loeb and I talk the importance of rigorous peer review before claiming aliens.
Elsevier's newest employee. h/t Adam Deitsch
August 13, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Elsevier's newest employee. h/t Adam Deitsch
Screenshot to not feed the troll. I see this occasionally, and it's worth it to respond. My pinned skeet says that "cool stuff that happens on one [climate] has parallels to help interpret the others." Let give an example that I'm writing up right now.
July 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Screenshot to not feed the troll. I see this occasionally, and it's worth it to respond. My pinned skeet says that "cool stuff that happens on one [climate] has parallels to help interpret the others." Let give an example that I'm writing up right now.
Analysis by the fantastic Mike Wong at Berkeley proves how bad ROSES 2025 is. 82% cut for solar system research. Our only hope is that Congress ignores Trump/Vought, and the program officers can fill this back up. More depressing graphs on his blog.
research.ssl.berkeley.edu/~mikewong/bl...
research.ssl.berkeley.edu/~mikewong/bl...
July 12, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Analysis by the fantastic Mike Wong at Berkeley proves how bad ROSES 2025 is. 82% cut for solar system research. Our only hope is that Congress ignores Trump/Vought, and the program officers can fill this back up. More depressing graphs on his blog.
research.ssl.berkeley.edu/~mikewong/bl...
research.ssl.berkeley.edu/~mikewong/bl...
Things are going great. 95°F/83°F=121°F heat index.
AC struggling.
AC struggling.
June 23, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Things are going great. 95°F/83°F=121°F heat index.
AC struggling.
AC struggling.
93°F/82°F at 10:20 in the morning. Heat index is 116°F.
What are we doing here? This would be bad for MS much less CT.
What are we doing here? This would be bad for MS much less CT.
June 23, 2025 at 2:26 PM
93°F/82°F at 10:20 in the morning. Heat index is 116°F.
What are we doing here? This would be bad for MS much less CT.
What are we doing here? This would be bad for MS much less CT.
The President's Budget request as released yesterday will gut scientific research. Why should you care?
1) Science is fundamentally a jobs program. Many 100,000s are employed to do science and work for you, the US taxpayer.
1) Science is fundamentally a jobs program. Many 100,000s are employed to do science and work for you, the US taxpayer.
May 31, 2025 at 3:30 PM
The President's Budget request as released yesterday will gut scientific research. Why should you care?
1) Science is fundamentally a jobs program. Many 100,000s are employed to do science and work for you, the US taxpayer.
1) Science is fundamentally a jobs program. Many 100,000s are employed to do science and work for you, the US taxpayer.
Made a list of NASA cut highlights(?) by request with references to the NASA budget request.
www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...
www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...
May 31, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Made a list of NASA cut highlights(?) by request with references to the NASA budget request.
www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...
www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...
I'm going to do something a bit dangerous and contradict a narrative—example screenshot and more in alt for context, but I've seen this in a couple of threads now. I'm only research faculty, but I have seen lists of students the actual faculty consider for admission at Yale.
![Post from an intentionally anonymized Harvard professor as part of a larger thread reading, "Harvard sponsoring those students [undergrads for grad admission] is not zero sum
At the frontiers of research -- where those students sit -- you can maybe find a dozen people around the world with the right skills and interests to take human knowledge into the unknown"
I'm not quote tweeting because I do not want to risk getting bombed if it gets the attention of the 20K followers from the OP.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rufgcyhn57hjx6u5ndvlf66e/bafkreihwsmgd7jn6kikbaekaorv2iwibsjofpuvaasvir2he6d4gm2t7nu@jpeg)
May 25, 2025 at 3:15 PM
I'm going to do something a bit dangerous and contradict a narrative—example screenshot and more in alt for context, but I've seen this in a couple of threads now. I'm only research faculty, but I have seen lists of students the actual faculty consider for admission at Yale.
Got spam to my work email from The Weather Company advertising themselves as "world's most accurate forecaster.*" [Asterisk theirs; ha.] I've never engaged them before. Scientists in industry may defend NWS against dismantling by DOGE/P25, but that's not how their business offices see the situation.
![Screenshot of spam from The Weather Company [from business@weather.com] advertising their services while NWS is being attacked and defunded by DOGE/Trump/Musk/Project 2025.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rufgcyhn57hjx6u5ndvlf66e/bafkreia3cwese5esqvsmmrdeuxpdumlgaucs6vqwioy3ynb4dayukhauwy@jpeg)
May 20, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Got spam to my work email from The Weather Company advertising themselves as "world's most accurate forecaster.*" [Asterisk theirs; ha.] I've never engaged them before. Scientists in industry may defend NWS against dismantling by DOGE/P25, but that's not how their business offices see the situation.
While most science is halved (see great post quoted), NASA is only cut by 25%. That difference isn't because *science* in NASA isn't also destroyed. It's because NASA's budget for crewed missions by unnamed private space companies balloons, hiding in the topline that NASA science is decimated too.
May 3, 2025 at 4:30 PM
While most science is halved (see great post quoted), NASA is only cut by 25%. That difference isn't because *science* in NASA isn't also destroyed. It's because NASA's budget for crewed missions by unnamed private space companies balloons, hiding in the topline that NASA science is decimated too.
This not about efficiency. This is about eliminating scientists as an objective source of information outside the control of Trump/Musk/Project2025 authors. Since Inauguration, the US government has spent MORE money this year than last year.
April 11, 2025 at 5:22 PM
This not about efficiency. This is about eliminating scientists as an objective source of information outside the control of Trump/Musk/Project2025 authors. Since Inauguration, the US government has spent MORE money this year than last year.
Cuts to #science of >50% at NASA and >75% at NOAA would end US climate and space science research.
NASA cuts are '...an "extinction level" event': arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
"At this funding level, Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is eliminated...": www.science.org/content/arti...
NASA cuts are '...an "extinction level" event': arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
"At this funding level, Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is eliminated...": www.science.org/content/arti...
April 11, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Cuts to #science of >50% at NASA and >75% at NOAA would end US climate and space science research.
NASA cuts are '...an "extinction level" event': arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
"At this funding level, Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is eliminated...": www.science.org/content/arti...
NASA cuts are '...an "extinction level" event': arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
"At this funding level, Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is eliminated...": www.science.org/content/arti...
Famously in my hometown of Vicksburg, there are marks on the flood gates separately indicating the 1927 flood as it happened and as if the levees had held. Standing near the river bank and lookup back up is fairly unsettling.
Credit: Library of Congress www.loc.gov/resource/hig...
Credit: Library of Congress www.loc.gov/resource/hig...
April 8, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Famously in my hometown of Vicksburg, there are marks on the flood gates separately indicating the 1927 flood as it happened and as if the levees had held. Standing near the river bank and lookup back up is fairly unsettling.
Credit: Library of Congress www.loc.gov/resource/hig...
Credit: Library of Congress www.loc.gov/resource/hig...
This low-high-low pattern happens for an independent measure of the dust too, called the column optical depth. This is measured differently than the reanalysis dataset we used to calculate the mode from winds, so the effect of the Annular Mode is in two different datasets on 3 different variables.
April 2, 2025 at 5:24 PM
This low-high-low pattern happens for an independent measure of the dust too, called the column optical depth. This is measured differently than the reanalysis dataset we used to calculate the mode from winds, so the effect of the Annular Mode is in two different datasets on 3 different variables.
This is important because winds lift dust. The 150 day period of the mode/winds imparts similar repeatability of the surface stress. The stress basically estimates friction that picks up dust. In these plots, at Lag±75 sols there is low (blue) stress near the pole, but at Lag=0, stress is big (red).
April 2, 2025 at 5:24 PM
This is important because winds lift dust. The 150 day period of the mode/winds imparts similar repeatability of the surface stress. The stress basically estimates friction that picks up dust. In these plots, at Lag±75 sols there is low (blue) stress near the pole, but at Lag=0, stress is big (red).
This shift back and forth isn't random. Mars (& Earth)'s modes migrate towards the pole every 150 sols (or Mars days). The blue blob in the fig goes from 30°N at -70 sols at bottom left to 75°N at +70 sol at top right. And the next cycle starts at the same 70 sol time at 30°N again.
April 2, 2025 at 5:24 PM
This shift back and forth isn't random. Mars (& Earth)'s modes migrate towards the pole every 150 sols (or Mars days). The blue blob in the fig goes from 30°N at -70 sols at bottom left to 75°N at +70 sol at top right. And the next cycle starts at the same 70 sol time at 30°N again.
Wikipedia faster than Schumer.
April 1, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Wikipedia faster than Schumer.
5.) Kevin McCarthy: you kissed Trump’s ring and were disgracefully kicked out of the House anyway last May.
April 1, 2025 at 6:12 PM
5.) Kevin McCarthy: you kissed Trump’s ring and were disgracefully kicked out of the House anyway last May.
4.) Elon Musk: Nazi’s were/are the bad guys, man. Also, how many times have cybertrucks had to be recalled this year? 7 How many starships did you blow up this year? 2. After all your flailing, government spending has gone up compared to 2024 since DOGE started, you fool.
April 1, 2025 at 6:12 PM
4.) Elon Musk: Nazi’s were/are the bad guys, man. Also, how many times have cybertrucks had to be recalled this year? 7 How many starships did you blow up this year? 2. After all your flailing, government spending has gone up compared to 2024 since DOGE started, you fool.
2.) Trump himself: So many reasons, but tarrifs are taxes on US citizens. COVID didn’t just “go away.” Putin is not your friend. Funding research is good for the economy. WHO and the Paris accord actually help US interests. Water in northern CA can't just flow to LA. On and on...
April 1, 2025 at 6:12 PM
2.) Trump himself: So many reasons, but tarrifs are taxes on US citizens. COVID didn’t just “go away.” Putin is not your friend. Funding research is good for the economy. WHO and the Paris accord actually help US interests. Water in northern CA can't just flow to LA. On and on...
1.) How can we not start with Mike Waltz?: The fool who shared classified attack plans with the EIC of the Atlantic. Shout out Sec. Def. Hegseth, DNI Gabbard and CIA Dir. Ratcliffe for lying through their teeth about it when they knew Goldberg could just publish the chat.
April 1, 2025 at 6:12 PM
1.) How can we not start with Mike Waltz?: The fool who shared classified attack plans with the EIC of the Atlantic. Shout out Sec. Def. Hegseth, DNI Gabbard and CIA Dir. Ratcliffe for lying through their teeth about it when they knew Goldberg could just publish the chat.