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Chris Colose

@ccolose.bsky.social
651 followers 110 following 544 posts

Climate scientist. Interested in past, present, and future Earth and planetary climates.

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Reposted by Chris Colose
Stephen Kane @exocytherean.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Love this new paper regarding albedos of lava worlds. Turns out hot terrestrial planets are shiny, which is the opposite of what we've generally seen for hot giant planets. Go TESS! Go PLATO! arxiv.org/abs/2609.26874
arxiv.org
Revealing the Shiny Nature of Lava Worlds: Small Planet Phase Curves with TESS
Recent thermal emission observations suggest that `lava worlds'--Earth-sized exoplanets hot enough to melt their silicate surfaces--have atmospheres on a population-level. This evidence comes from mea...
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
By far the best trip I've ever done (partly for ACDC), and had a great northern light show, definitely other-worldly and an amazing culture.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Doing some orbital stuff, thought I'd make a plot integrating Earth's eccentricity forward 2 Myr removing individual planets (plot is of the e range). I'm close to Laskar's result for the standard case. Also General Relativity plays some role which Earth feels by affecting Mercury's precession rate.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Good paper (though the results have been shown before) with implications for weathering rates in hothouse climates to set the CO2 thermostat.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Nice from @readfearn.bsky.social although maybe we can suggest better ways to avoid references to dry air “holding” vapor, like “warmer temperatures support more atmospheric water vapor." This always seems to read as less graceful, but Clausius-Clapeyron works without the non-condensing background.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
…because that's the one your orbit makes sweep across your sky, and a moving reference is the only kind that produces a recurring alignment in the first place. I guess “stellar day” could work but besides its everyday usage, could confuse the illuminating star with the background stars (sidereal).
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I get the awkwardness, but it's also pretty well established (e.g. for asteroid rotation periods, and lunar phases, which are defined by Moon–Sun geometry, so it's the synodic month, not the sidereal one, that sets the visible cycle). The Greek "coming together" picks out the orbited body…
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Blue ice has come up a lot in the Paris paleo school and I’ve been hoping this whole time that something like this would come out soon!
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
…does this even work? Does moving from a more precise term like “climate change” to “climate breakdown” actually incentivize action or changes in worldview? I haven’t seen evidence, and if anything it’s the wrong kind of anxiety (like questioning the ethics of having a kid).
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Somewhat more forgivable but still irks me is increasing use of terms like “climate crisis” or “climate breakdown,” even among people I very much respect. It’s not that I can’t be convinced climate change isn’t a crisis, but it’s rather poorly formulated, not unlike “tipping points.” But for comm…
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Or if we did tip over, do we just sit back, sing by the campfire, and say “oh well it’s been nice, it’s over now?” Seems a bit shortsighted.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
2/ tipping points in subsystems (a glacier, biology) but the bulk climate response is pretty linear. At the very least, centering tipping points is very inappropriate. But more importantly, it removes focus from very real threats of slow moving linear trends, and complacency when a threshold not hit
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
One thing striking me so far (and I think there’s a U.S. vs European thing) is the fascination w tipping points in journalism discourse here. I think this is misguided for a few reasons. One is there’s no compelling evidence for big tipping points in the modern climate. There can be in certain 1/
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Reposted by Chris Colose
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
🧵CO₂ removal (CDR) is back in the news, but just because the UNEP report says we need CDR, it doesn't mean we'll have CDR. Many challenges will take decades of research and negotiation to solve. Here are some examples: Technological: We currently don't have any durable CDR method that scales.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
For climate experts here: if you could ask questions to journalists on how they communicate on climate, what would they look like? (We’re actually doing this with real journalists and journalism students in Europe, so it might get passed on)
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Real picture from Paris
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Great presentstions of student projects at the FuPa Cenozoic climate summer school in Paris. From EBMs (I was happy to help mentor on this) to Eocene crocodiles (I guess Crocodilia as a broader taxonomic category) as useful proxies for hothouse climate ranges.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Of course the story starts with less sunlight, but even with more CO2 now than on Earth, Mars doesn’t have a strong greenhouse effect due to lack of pressure broadening of its absorption features. Add a bar of N2, and you’d get warmer.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
New hypothesis for snowball bifurcations
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Gare du Nord
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
At a metro stop in France, there is an exhibit showing equations developed by Manabe in his 1960s modeling work. @climatebook.bsky.social
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Paper suggesting a 129ish day theoretical limit to a Earth weather forecast at which quantum effects introduce the “final” initial condition uncertainty. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
A New Approach to Estimating the Limit of Predictability - Advances in Atmospheric Sciences
We define the limit of predictability as the time period over which any information about the evolving state of a dynamical system can be retained, assuming its dynamics, the state at one point in tim...
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
There’s no end to the tech tr(b)illionnaires dreams but it’s much easier to wade off fossil fuels, or e.g. invest in asteroid deflection, than declare mastery over the planet though half-brained geoengineering ideas.
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Reposted by Chris Colose
Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The sheer scale of destruction amid Himalayan glacier collapse disaster is horrifying, as is presumptive human toll. This was no mere flash flood or mudslide--it was more akin to a geologic-scale debris avalanche or "inland tsunami." The footage emerging is almost unbelievable.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Has there been anything convincing that Common Era El Niño/La Nina tendencies have a substantial forced component? It matters for the future since muted E. pac warming biases sensitivity estimates low, but internal variability seems sufficient to explain that, e.g www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
pnas.org
Major role for internal variability in tropical Pacific warming pattern over satellite era | PNAS
Home to El Niño, the tropical Pacific is a key player in the global climate system. While most of the planet has warmed during the satellite era of...
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Reposted by Chris Colose
Prof Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com · 24/08/2026
🧊 A tropical ice core rewrites the methane record A new tropical ice core shows equatorial wetlands emitted more methane before industrialisation than polar ice cores ever suggested. 🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10938-1 #ClimateScience #Methane #IceCore 🧪
doi.org
A global atmospheric methane record from a tropical ice core - Nature
A 2,000-year Peruvian ice core record of atmospheric CH4 concentrations contains the first historical global CH4 record from the low latitudes, and implementation of a four-box model indicates higher ...
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I would be great if the militant defense of doing race science among academic freedom signatories could occasionally show up in other forms, like defending the right of scientists to use words like "increase" or "biased" in a grant. grantwritingandfunding.com/banned-and-t...
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
A lot of people are still surprised that the physics setting the amount of water vapor in a warming atmosphere is rather decoupled from what sets the mean precipitation rate.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
In addition, probably worth revisiting the idea of screening climate models based on their sensitivity. In addition to aerosols, you also decouple sensitivity from historic warming based on things like the spatial pattern of warming.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
With all the El Niño & global temperature discussions, while global temps are elevated (largely due to latent heating in the atmosphere) the ocean loses heat and Earth loses heat radiatively. The upcoming “mega” El Niño will be a good test case of the physics (and hopefully no more “pause” talk).
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
There have been some egregious things that people have rightly critiqued, but it’s portrayed as having “taken over” academia, which is nonsense. To be fair, not many fields are as good as climate at communicating their value to the public, so the public doesn’t see much of it.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Yes, we had someone give a talk here on that and was working out the integration. I asked and didn’t get a clear answer on how much this affects the total instellation, but yes, certainly can matter for stuff a bit beyond the terminator, and for observables.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Interesting radiative transfer when the planet’s emission is also in the shortwave, and most coming and going out is absorbed.
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Reposted by Chris Colose
ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
This is really alarming. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a... Having evidently decided that a full-on military invasion of Greenland would rouse too much opposition, Trump's fossil fuel cronies are doing his dirty work for him, moving in on drilling in an environmentally protected area and daring
theguardian.com
Greenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drill
Island’s government says no approval given after Greenland Energy brings kit ashore for exploratory drilling
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Reposted by Chris Colose
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Time Traveler Causes of Death xkcd.com/2976/
A modified XKCD comic titled "TOP CAUSES OF DEATH FOR TIME TRAVELERS BY GEOLOGIC ERA:" features a tall, vertical rectangle representing Earth's timeline from its formation down to the present day. Along the left axis, tick marks indicate time intervals from "EARTH FORMS" at the top down through "4 BILLION YEARS AGO," "3 BILLION YEARS AGO," "2 BILLION YEARS AGO," "1 BILLION YEARS AGO," "500 MILLION YEARS AGO," and ending at "NOW" at the bottom. The vertical column is divided into stacked sections labeling the leading cause of death for each period: beginning at the top with "LAVA," followed by a section for "ASPHYXIATION," a thin band for "METEORS," a large section for "ASPHYXIATION," an even larger block spanning roughly 2.2 billion to 700 million years ago labeled "SLIGHTLY SLOWER ASPHYXIATION," and then smaller bands near the bottom labeled "FREEZING," "STARVING," "EATEN BY FISH," "TRAMPLED," and "EATEN BY MAMMALS." Next to the very bottom sliver representing the present day, an arrow points to the text "HIT BY SUV."
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
At the end of the day, Covid was dangerous but effectively over, the vaccines worked, the world moved on, lessons learned, and the Weinstein-Rogan cranks & their solutions/vax critiques were intellectually bankrupt, but cost far more lives than personality defects in scientists emails.
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Reposted by Chris Colose
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 27/07/2026
On The Climate Brink, @zekehausfather.com and I revisit the warmth of the 1930s. This seems to be one of the most important denier arguments out there. www.theclimatebrink.com/p/raw-data-w...
theclimatebrink.com
Raw Data, Wrong Answers
What happens to the 1930s temperature record after correcting measurement biases and station coverage
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
www.science.org/content/blog...
science.org
The Assault On Science Funding Continues
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
He’s one of the most unambiguous frauds in climate skeptic discourse. At least some folks (ahem, DOE) play it a little cool. He’s no different than an internet troll who gets literally everything wrong, by a lot.
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Dr. Thomas Ronge @thomasronge.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Pretty cool and dramatic NASA animation showing the long-range transport of 2026 Canadian wildfire smoke.
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Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
'Our findings indicate that more severe fire effects are expected in Canada because of the warming climate' www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Canadian forests are more conducive to high-severity fires in recent decades
Canada has experienced more-intense and longer fire seasons with more-frequent uncontrollable wildfires over the past decades. However, the effect of these changes remains unknown. This study identifi...
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Trump’s threat of tariffs against Canada for smoke “invasion” is stupid, but a good case study of how geopolitics will react to SRM deployment, when different countries/billionaires/trillionaires have varying levels of aerosol control (despite the fossil fuel invasion of everyone against everyone)
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
MAGA is finally on board with carbon taxes
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Temperatures in Canada are going up partly because of U.S. emissions, which are invading the entire globe.
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Reposted by Chris Colose
Robin Wordsworth @rdword.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Very proud of my student Collin Cherubim for his discovery of an atmosphere on the habitable-zone exoplanet LHS 1140 b! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/s...
nytimes.com
Astronomers Find an Atmosphere on a Nearby Earthlike Planet
It’s the first potentially habitable world known to host an atmosphere, making it a lead contender in the search for life beyond our solar system.
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Thanks Canada for your Mie Scattering
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David Grinspoon @drfunkyspoon.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Today’s news, brought to you by the fossil fuel industry:
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Chris Colose @ccolose.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Climate Change as a Global Tea Party
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Stephen Kane @exocytherean.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
15 years ago, @dawngelino.bsky.social and I launched the Habitable Zone Gallery. To celebrate this milestone, we are proud to announce a significantly revamped site, with new aesthetics, features, and plot options. Check it out here: hzgallery.org.
hzgallery.org
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