Silvia Caldararu🌿
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scaldararu.bsky.social
Silvia Caldararu🌿
@scaldararu.bsky.social
1.6K followers 910 following 850 posts
Assistant professor in climate science at Trinity College Dublin. Posts about climate, how plants are affected by global change, diversity in science, academia, SF&F books, TTRPGs. She/her. https://plantecomodelling.org/
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scaldararu.bsky.social
Surely our first port of call should be not having oil and gas as the world's top industry #COP30
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Screenshot from the linked article: To achieve this through technological means, such as direct air capture, would require the construction of the world’s second biggest industry, after oil and gas, and require expenditures of about a trillion dollars a year, scientists said.
November 11, 2025 at 7:47 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
@newphyt.bsky.social calendar just arrived I'm the post! My desk has been looking so empty
Photo of a desk calendar opened at the October page. The page is purple with a picture of a flower and the New Phytologist abd Plants, People, Planet journal logos at the bottom
October 24, 2025 at 10:34 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Join us for an online panel on climate action next Friday 24th of October 1 pm GMT. More information here www.tcd.ie/e3/news/e3-t...
Event flyer showing pictures of four people Prof. Anna Davies and Dr. Silvia Caldararu from the School of Natural Sciences, Stephen Treacy from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Gemma Donnelly-Cox, Director of the Centre for Social Innovation. The title of the panel is "Panel discussion on International Climate Action Day"
October 17, 2025 at 12:40 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
I have the most amazing research group. For my 40th birthday the made me a Cluedo gane with a custom board, hand drawn cards of all of us and a knitted cover with our group name.
October 13, 2025 at 6:21 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Come work with us - The School of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin is looking for a tenure track assistant professor in plant biodiversity and conservation 🧪🌏🌾 my.corehr.com/pls/trrecrui...

Drop me a message if you want to chat about what it's like to work here or live in Ireland.
an old building with climbing plants around the door with purple flowers. The sign above the door says school of botany 1907
October 1, 2025 at 9:15 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Baby steps but still kinda proud of Trinity for continuing to not mow the lawns. It's all looking a little dry though - it's been a weird summer, high moisture but low rain
A photo of a lawn with tall grass looking kind of yellow and a tree and grey, old looking buildings in the background
August 22, 2025 at 2:30 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
I think I conceptually get this but I still don't understand how it can be used. Here are some examples suggested by that Medium article: /9
So what can you do with the Satellite Embedding dataset? To get you inspired, here are a few things we’re excited about: Similarity Search: You can pick a point anywhere on Earth — say, in a specific type of farmland or forest — and instantly find and map all other locations with similar surface and environmental conditions anywhere in the world. Change Detection: By comparing the embedding vectors for the same pixel from different years, you can easily spot changes and track processes like urban sprawl, wildfire impacts and recovery, and fluctuating reservoir water levels. Automatic Clustering: Without any pre-existing labels, you can use clustering algorithms to automatically group pixels into distinct categories. This spatio-temporal segmentation can reveal hidden patterns in the landscape, differentiating various types of forests, soils, or urban development. Smarter Classification: You can create accurate maps with far less training data. For example, instead of needing tens of thousands of labeled points to map crop types with more conventional inputs, you might only need a few hundred per class, saving time and compute.
August 15, 2025 at 11:19 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
It looks like what it provides are embeddings. What are these you ask? This is what the article says: /7
Measurements. The geospatial embeddings generated by AlphaEarth Foundations are learned across diverse data sources from the Earth Engine Data Catalog and geo-temporally located text labels. The model uses a self-supervised approach that enables learning from many types of data at once without hand-annotated training data. By assimilating information across multiple sources and modes of description, including Sentinel-1 C-Band SAR, multi-spectral Sentinel-2, and multi-spectral, panchromatic, and thermal observations from Landsat 8 and Landsat 9, GEDI Raster Canopy Height metrics, GLO-30 DEM, ERA5-Land Reanalysis Monthly Aggregates, ALOS PALSAR-2 ScanSAR, GRACE monthly mass grids, and several text sources, AlphaEarth Foundations is able to learn a more compact representation of pixel properties and semantics.
August 15, 2025 at 11:19 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
I'm trying to explore Google DeepMind's AlphaEarth. It seems like it has a lot of potential, previous models from them, like AlphaFold rocked their scientific fields so what can this one do for us? A thread of what I've managed to figure out. 🧪🌏
A screenshot: AlphaEarth Foundations helps map our planet in unprecedented detail. Colourful images of what appear to be high resolution satellite images
August 15, 2025 at 11:19 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Got this advert from Aer Lingus - it's just fields? Like, yeah, come to Ireland to see our monocultures! Who needs nature when we've got grass!
A screenshot of an internet advert, with the Aer Lingus logo in the corner and the text 'Land a great deal this summer. Next stop, Ireland! The image is of a coastline with cliffs and a beach and behind it as far as the eye can see little patches of uniform green fields
June 9, 2025 at 12:33 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
A fantastic annual retreat for the Plant Ecology Group in the Wicklow Mountains. People that enjoy spending time together do good science together.
A hilly landscape with grass and trees and perfectly blue sky. In the middle, a hiking path with four people walking away from the camera Nine people in summer clothes and sunglasses, smiling, sitting on stone steps, with trees in the background
May 22, 2025 at 11:41 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Come and work with us! 2+2 year postdoc at Trinity College Dublin on modelling plant defence and resistance to pathogens. Going from first principles to near term forecasts and decision tools.

Deadline 3rd of March, start date as soon as possible. 🧪🌏🌾
plantecomodelling.org/downloads/E-...
Text and university logos on a white and orange background: Ecological forecasting of tree resistance to pathogens 2-year postdoc (possible +2 year extension, funding secured) Eligibility: PhD in ecology, geosciences, environmental science, or a similar relevant subject; experience in using and/or developing vegetation or land surface models; programming experience (e.g. R, Python, Matlab, Fortran); at least one first author peer-reviewed publication (preprint ok) Start date: March 2025 or as soon as possible, no later than September Deadline: 3rd of March 17.00 GMT photo of research group around a table, with Christmas decorations in the background, three women and two men, all youngish, all smiling
February 5, 2025 at 5:53 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
So I put up a postdoc ad on Linkedin for the first time and looking through the settings, I found this set as default. In-built discrimination. Why?!?!
Screenshot of the option Rate applicants who are outside the European Union and Ukraine as “Not a fit”, set to ON
January 6, 2025 at 2:49 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Still time to apply for this postdoc position! Deadline Monday 13th.
Black text on a white background: Ecological forecasting of plant resistance to ash dieback and other pathogens We invite applications for a 2-year postdoctoral researcher (with the possibility of extension for another 2 years) within the Plant Ecology Modelling group in the Discipline of Botany, School of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin.
January 6, 2025 at 2:35 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Or maybe because - and not despite - of talks at COP29 and previous COPs where fossil fuel lobbyists have been allowed at the negotiation table and no one had any intention to take meaningful action.
Screenshot of a Guardian headline: "World’s 1.5C climate target ‘deader than a doornail’, experts say Scientists say goal to keep world’s temperature rise below 1.5C is not going to happen despite talks at Cop29 in Baku"
November 18, 2024 at 1:40 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
My take on the carbon budget
A Calvin and Hobbs comic. Calvin's mum says 'Life could be worse, Calvin'' and he shouts 'Life could be a lot better too'
November 13, 2024 at 8:35 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
What a pretty but confusingly bad infographic. Of course there are few trees in Reykjavik, it's in Iceland. Conversely, nordic cities have a lot of trees by virtue of climate, population density and history. 1/ 🌾🌏
An infographic of urban tree cover in Eruope, with cities on the y axis and city area on the x-axis. Area covered by trees shown in green, area covered by built infrastructure in grey. Top is Sarajeco with 76% and bottom Reykjavik with 1.6%
October 28, 2024 at 4:44 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Any atmospheric scientists that could tell me why this cloud is so straight? Picture taken in central Dublin.
Photo across building roofs showing a low, dark cloud which is very narrow and with straight edges
October 24, 2024 at 8:40 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
"Advancing Your Research Career module is designed to help researchers from all fields and disciplines adopt a strategic and reflective approach to managing their careers" #academia
Goose chasing man meme - two panel line drawing of a goose chasing a amn while asking a question. The question text is what about shi giant workload?
September 30, 2024 at 11:36 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Is this a metaphor for how universities treat their academic staff?
A screenshot of an email reading: Hi all, I hope you are well. Voice Ireland will be on the College Green campus on Wednesday 25th September to deliver free workshops focused on waste. The workshops are 45mins in duration and the content is as follows: The workshop is a brief run through of waste and resources, how the careless use of the latter leads to the increase of the former, what are the things that we, as consumers/citizens, have to deal with as a result, and the actions we can take on an organisational and personal level to address it. It's not heavy going and people from varied backgrounds enjoy it. It's conversational and, ultimately, practical.
September 23, 2024 at 3:26 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
Back at work after #worldcon, there is now nothing standing between me and the start of term.

But I have this cute dinosaur sticker from @genkigear.bsky.social surely this will help.
Photo of a macbook with stickers, one of which features a cute blue dinosaur with a speech bubble saying: here I am trying my best to be a 'minding-my-own-buissness-o-saurus'
August 13, 2024 at 8:31 AM
scaldararu.bsky.social
July 30, 2024 at 8:48 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
AI can most certainly not help with editorial workflows. Now go away, Wiley. #academia
A screenshot of a webinar invitation that says Wiley Editor webinar How AI can help with your editorial workflows
July 1, 2024 at 1:40 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
The Irish EPA grant submission page has a live countdown at the top. This is not stressful at all. #academia
A screenshot of a live countdown that says: submission for this call will close in 19 days 22 hours 24 minutes 3 seconds
May 10, 2024 at 4:39 PM
scaldararu.bsky.social
My 2nd year #climate science class is wrapping up tomorrow with our COP negotiation simulation. Can they come to an agreement or will it just be endless arguments? 🧪🌎
A photo of printed nane plates with the names of different countries, some envelopes and some tokens to be used during the game
April 9, 2024 at 11:28 AM