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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

And finally -- this is so, so true about climate problems, wherever you find them:

When it comes to climate problems, clouds are a headache.

ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Illustration of what Earth's temperature would be like without an atmosphere, using the Moon as example. (What I actually said was "Planet with comparable orbit to the Earth, but without an atmosphere." At least I hope that's what I said. )

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

And my one-graph description of climate physics

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Guy is collaborating with Gilles Ramstein on a bande dessinée about Earth's climate through the ages. Here are some of his sketches from my lecture, starting with my intro:

Sketch of Pierrehumbert intro "Please feel free to interrupt me with questions"

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Perhaps you'd also be interested in pondering this figure from a paper I was involved in with Peter Clarke, showing where we go out to 10000AD in the context of the past 20,000 years.

Temperature and CO2 for the next 10000 years

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

#Morris danceout: And here is Summertown Morris doing a hanky dance. (I don't know the name of this particular dance). They are a very vigorous young side. Morris lives!

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

#Morris danceout: And here's Wolvercote again, in a stick dance doing Skirmish (though to a different tune from the usual British Grenadiers). Yasha on fiddle standing in for me while I take the video.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

#Morris dance-out. Here is the Eynsham side doing "Drunken Sailor" When they clack their sticks, they really go for it! Wouldn't want to get in the way, there.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

#Morris danceout last night! A few clips. Here's my own side, Wolvercote, doing Chicken Chasing. (I'm the box player in the light flat cap on the left).

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Try this one! It will expand your horizons out into the Universe.

Book cover, Planetary Systems: A very short introduction, by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Time for everybody to reread Norman MacLean's Young Men and Fire:

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

As seen on a lawn in Madison, WI. (Needs to be updated with the lone-star tick, I guess)

Yard sign with Deer Tick, Dog Tick and Luna Tick (the last of these illustrated with a picture of Donald Trump)

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Left panel is the sketch from Swedenborg's book:

Swedenborg and the genesis of the nebular hypothesis for planetary system formation

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Stirling Air engine. The rotor is moving so fast you can't see it moving, but you can hear it, and see the flashing light powered by the itty bitty generator it runs. If you extinguish the flame and crank the rotor instead, it acts as a heat pump. The working fluid is plain old air.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Agreed. Me, a considerable number of years ago, Abisko, early Spring. -28C outside, -6C inside, but I still felt drained when I got back.

A "quinzee" (a kind of snow cave) in Abisko, Sweden

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Edouard Barrier: Effect of hazes on surface temperature of subNeptunes

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Robb Calder (invited presentation): Most subNeptunes observed so far have magma oceans.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Namrah Habib on subNeptune convection at high resolution, incorporating compositional buoyancy effects:

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Joseph Livesey on how tidal heating restricts habitability of subNeptunes:

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Cara Pasciotta shows how hydration of hazes in water-rich atmospheres changes their optical properties:

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

gear on top and they'd still be intact after a week. I haven't seen Voima around for a while.

Voima crispbread package, with worker carrying a huge sack of grain.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

additional kneading. A bonus is that you can control the amount of salt -- commercial bread, even the expensive boutique stuff, tends to have a ton of salt. Wonderful to be able to produce such a beautiful nourishing thing with only the most basic gear.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

And this bit of hype now appears at the bottom of the Google search page. Yeah, right; more like "Destroying the environment through witless expansion of useless AI."

Screen shot: "Applying AI towards science and the environment"

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

New Years Eve, ski trail at ABR in Ironwood, MI. Best snow I've had my skis on in several years, including our last spring ski trip to Äkäslompolo.

Snow covered cross country ski trail through the North Woods of Michigan

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Warmest wishes on the fourth of Advent, and last day of Chanukah

Two families of Advent candles, plus a menorah

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Third of Advent 2025 (posted a week late)

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Very interesting piece on the work of a (formerly) Oxford seismologist on soils. In honor of George's interest in soils, I'm re-upping the Antigo Silt Loam song.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Congratulations to Dr. Richard Chatterjee, my DPhil student who passed his viva on atmospheric escape today and is off to a position at Leeds. (Me on the left, his examiners Garcia-Muñoz and Tad Komacek on the right -- Tad and Richard are in the traditional subfusc, except should be white tie)

Left to right: Pierrehumbert, Chatterjee, Garcia-Munoz, Komacek

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Yikes, this last one takes the cake for getting it in just under the wire, practically to the millisecond! And so to bed. (Time zone Oxford, 1AM = 8PM EDT)

JWST submission at exactly the deadline time of 1AM Oxford time.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Breaking: MIT president Sally Kornbluth decisively rejects Trump's coercive "compact" for higher education. Here is an excerpt from her letter, following on a description of the principles by which MIT has already abided. I'm proud to be re-joining their faculty in 2026.

Sally Kornbluth's response to Trump "compact" for higher education. (Excerpt)

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Following up on this thread, something that might not have been clear from what's in the paper is what's going on with the bare rock vs. rock vapour case in Fig. 2, so I'll add some additional explanation here.

Dayside emission spectrum for the planet TOI 561b, with comparison to various model atmospheres.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

Our other piggy, SeitaPirtti, also got along well with Rob's piggies, but wasn't in the pictures. Here she is:

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

And now one of Rob's makes friends with one of ours:

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

@robb-b.bsky.social , an old friend, made a connection on bluesky recently, and we were reminiscing about a play date for our family's guinea pigs. At the time I only had a crummy early electronic camera, but here are the pix I found from the time. First, Rob's family piggies:

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

#EPSCDPS2025 : Make sure to catch Alex McGinty's poster ( #proudadvisor ) F219 today on modeling of the phase curve of the lava planet TOI 561b .

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

under which a liquid water ocean can form. This includes determination of how much water abundance is needed as a function of the instellation (basically how far out you are from the star). This employs new thermal evolution models.

When does cooling allow H2-H2O demixing and formation of a liquid ocean?

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

Hamish Innes just finished talking about subNeptunes at #EPSCDPS2025. In his doctoral work at Oxford (#proudadvisor) he identified conditions for existence of a liquid water ocean at subNeptunes, concluding they have to be much more weakly irradiated than any current candidates

H2 atmospheres on subNeptunes push the habitable zone outtwards

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

traditional joik. That just underscores that joik is a living and evolving tradition. If you want to get an idea of what really traditional joik is like, here is an example from the Svecia Joik disk (no copyright, and silly I had to turn it into a movie to post it)

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

And science fiction catches on to the new picture rather quickly. This collection is from 1968. Wikipedia thinks it was mainly stimulated by Venera 4, the first successful in situ probe (though it didn't reach the surface, and wasn't intended to).

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Two relevant snippets from my 2013 Hayden Planetarium talk on science fiction atmospheres. First, the old swamp world picture (not actually ridiculous, given the high albedo of Venus):

Amazing Stories Venus and C.S. Lewis Perelandra

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Den finns fortfarande, men utsålt tydligen i augusti, tyvärr.

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