iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 14/11/2025

You read the study in the Global Tipping Points Report, now join @iceybethan.bsky.social @ricarda-winkelmann.bsky.social, Judy Daxootsu Ramos and Annika Ord and me to discuss glacier loss and tipping points southeast Alaska at the #COP30 Cryosphere Pavilion next Monday. @pik-potsdam.bsky.social

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 13/10/2025

Floods from Suicide Basin in '23, '24, and '25 each set records for the largest on record. Following the 2024 flood, which damaged 300+ homes, new temporary barriers were installed to protect the community, at a cost to homeowners of $6000+ dollars. As Áakʼw Tʼáak Sítʼ... www.juneauflood.com#/home

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 13/10/2025

But a MAJOR focus of the case study is not just on "how/why" Áakʼw Tʼáak Sítʼ may tip, but the consequences of it doing so. Indigenous Tlingit communities have lived in and stewarded the coastal rainforests and waters of southeast Alaska and southwest Canada for at least the last 10,000 years...

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 13/10/2025

flow off this high plateau, they cross over a steep lip, where icefalls like this form. This is key for several of the feedbacks that may lead to tipping: 1️⃣: 'ELA' rise. When average temperatures warm 📈, it decreases the amount of snow which remains through the winter, raising a glacier's...

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 13/10/2025

In it, we've gone into quite a bit of detail on how smaller glacial systems tip, building off the major body of work by @iceybethan.bsky.social, @jeremyely.bsky.social and colleagues. These studies showed that the Icefield's source areas predominantly sit on a flat, high plateau. As the glaciers..

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 13/10/2025

The #JuneauIcefield is a deeply meaningful place for me and many others, part of the reason we put so much care into our case study on tipping of Áakʼw Tʼáak Sítʼ (Mendenhall Glacier), one of the icefield's major outlet glaciers. The study is out today as part of the Global Tipping Points Report.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 14/05/2025

others are the “network” I talk about here. In January, I finally defended a PhD here in Berlin. And the other happy ending is that Shivani, the other PhD who had to leave our group in Boston, joined us here at PIK last year as a post-doc. Finally we have the chance to work together on Antarctica.

Me and Shivani smiling at my defense in Berlin, 7 years after leaving Boston.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 07/05/2025

Super stoked to be one of the speakers at this year's #PrideHike in the beautiful Kaisergebirge! I'll be chatting all weekend about the changing alpine environment and how that impacts us ~all~, especially those of us whose happy place is up in the thin air. Thanks to Osprey (packs) Europe for (1/2)

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 05/03/2025

This quote at my SBahn stop hitting differently this week. “What a time it is when talking about trees is almost a crime. Because it involves silence about so many misdeeds!” How I feel coming and going talking about clim. change/Michelangelo, trying to ignore the rising tide in my former home.

Quote in German from Bertolt Brecht translated as: What a time it is when talking about trees is almost a crime. Because it involves silence about so many misdeeds!

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 21/01/2025

Now off to France with the ‘rents 😍😎.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 21/01/2025

at EGU, then AGU, the panic as friends saw at it then looked back at me. Losing the fire somewhere along the route, finding it again recently. What a decade. 🥹. So many friends. Thanks to all—it took a village.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 21/01/2025

Did a thing last week🎓. Really thought I wouldve left it before that day came tbh. Can remember the moment I was accepted to a PhD, 21, totally gobsmacked. The day I left Boston and that first PhD, my supervisor in the Times for harassing his students in Antarctica. The first time w/ my 🌈 pin(1/2)

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 08/12/2024

Had a great time at this year’s TIPMIP meeting with @docaharper.bsky.social and so many others! We had a night at the Maryland Science Center and a keynote by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse as well as many many productive science conversations 😊.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 01/12/2024

Just spent the last two weeks crisscrossing the U.S. West with my TIPMIP colleague to talk climate and Earth system tipping points. We’ve learned so much about the state of tipping research in the U.S.! Looking forward to our next stops on the East coast before our TIPMIP General Assembly and AGU!

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 11/12/2023

Happening today at Lettretage in Berlin! Join for a discussion of "The Shining Mountains" by Alix Christie, and a short warm-up reading by yours truly :). Veteranenstr. 21, doors open at 19:00, readings begin 19:30.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 21/11/2023

pro tip: if you power walk to work listening to an aerobics playlist wearing a beige turtleneck, white high tops, and calvins, you kinda feel like your mom in the eighties which is fun.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 20/11/2023

Berlin is cool cuz you can go from this and this to that and that without an outfit change.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 14/11/2023

Join us on 11. Dec. at Lettretage in Berlin for a Montana-filled evening :)!

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 20/10/2023

Welcome to Bluesky @flisaacs.bsky.social! Was going through some old photos and came across this evergreen photo.... Hope to see you sometime soon here in Potsdam :)... also spotted @juliusgarbe.bsky.social (who I'm sure would be just as excited to see you too). What a morning :) :) :)

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 16/10/2023

Was such a delight to see @katharinehayhoe.com at PIK today 😊. Such a nice discussion on public perceptions of climate change/policies, the role of scientists in enacting climate policy change, and the space science and scientists occupy in political arenas. Thanks for the great talk (as always)!

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 05/10/2023

Are you modelling or interested in tipping points? Curious about the Tipping Points Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP)? We're hosting a "TIPMIP for All" event Mon. to update folks and get them interested in joining us. Sign up at tipmipforall.bpt.me. Looking forward to seeing folks there :)!

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 26/09/2023

Few things that make me as happy as this view 😊. Also zoom in on the clouds. They’re wonky. 📍Angel Pt., Flathead Lake

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 19/09/2023

First time up to the lake in four years 😍.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 18/09/2023

Road snap from here in #BigSkyCountry. Another week in beautiful Montana.

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 11/09/2023

Wrote a little thing a while back which became my first published essay today. It’s about when I was 16 and a page in DC, and how I fell in love with a boy for the 1st time while listening to senators debate whether that kind of thing should be accepted. hippocampusmagazine.com/2023/09/in-t...

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Donovan Dennis @donovanpdennis.com · 22/08/2023

(Re-)introducing myself here on 🟦sky 😊. I'm Donovan, a geoscientist and wannabe writer with a checkered past involving politics, history, and art history. I deviated from ice into (cold) rocks for my PhD, but am thankfully back in the ice world now. Also a big ol' gay 🌈, (except not very tall).

Me in hiking gear and a large, full, backpack that is described as a stratigraphic section and includes mostly rocks.

Sampling the base of what was once a glacier.

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