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James Rae

@mudwaterclimate.bsky.social
2K followers 631 following 102 posts

Climate scientist and geochemist @UnivofStAndrews | CO2 & ocean circulation past & present | Social & Environmental justice

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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
What’s the German word for the opposite of a dunkelflaute?! Sunny and windy conditions in the U.K. currently pushing down fossil gas generation to only 6.5% on UK electricity grid grid.iamkate.com 🔌⚡️🌬️☀️
Pie chart of the sources of electricity generation on the U.K. grid. Large segments of yellow (solar) and green (wind) reflecting sunny, windy conditions. Fossil gas is a small orange segment.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Was a real pleasure speaking to @elisecutts.bsky.social for Science on the beautiful new CO2 results over the MPT from Beyond EPICA presented by Florian Krauss at EGU. (And also nice to see them line up nicely with our CO2 reconstruction from boron!)
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Final call for our opening in @earthscista.bsky.social - chair in Earth Sciences, closes Monday. Fancy escaping to a great University in a lovely wee country? Need a wee weekend project?! Then get your applications in! 🧪⚒️🌊
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Chair in Earth Sciences position @uniofstandrews.bsky.social closing soon - Monday 23 March. Very broad remit, so if you’d like to join our lovely school, and get to live in the super beautiful and friendly wee nation of Scotland, please apply! www.st-andrews.ac.uk/earth-scienc... ⚒️🌊🧪
East Sands beach, St Andrews, in the sunshine (which happens more often than you probably think!)
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
@mudwaterclimate.bsky.social is a professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at @uniofstandrews.bsky.social. His research focuses on geochemical measurements to reconstruct past changes in climate to understand their causes so we can better predict changes in the future.
A close-up, black and white portrait of a smiling man with a shaved head, positioned outdoors against a softly blurred background. He's wearing a dark, collared button-down shirt. The background features the out-of-focus silhouette of a large industrial structure, the Finnieston Crane, under an overcast sky.
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Will Gray @willerstorfi.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
new paper led by Andressa Nauter-Alves assessing controls on trace elements (Mg, Sr, B, Li /Ca) in multiple species of benthic foraminifera using a large compilation of coretop samples (>1500 sites). dx.doi.org/10.1029/2025...
dx.doi.org
Thermal and Non‐Thermal Controls on Benthic Foraminiferal Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, B/Ca, and Mg/Li: Global Core‐Top Compilation, Revised Calibrations, and Application to the Geologic Record
We compile ∼1,500 core-top benthic foraminiferal Mg-Sr-B-Li/Ca measurements from five species and one genus to produce new calibrations Many benthic foraminiferal elemental systems require multiv...
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 22/11/2025
"Despite the difficulties getting everyone to agree on how to tackle climate change, real-world solutions are being implemented at speed almost everywhere." Love this #COP30 takeaway from @georginarannard.bsky.social. Just because countries aren't acting at scale doesn't mean the rest of us can't!
bbc.com
COP30 in Brazil fails to secure new pledges to cut fossil fuels - follow live
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Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 13/11/2025
NEW: I wrote about British churches installing heat pumps, in some cases in 1,000-year-old buildings! Decarbonisation may not be easy, but many view it as an act of faith. This is a special feature to mark The Reengineer’s first anniversary! Spread the word! 🥳 www.thereengineer.pro/p/let-there-...
thereengineer.pro
Let there be warmth! The British churches putting their faith in heat pumps
Ancient buildings and old bones aren’t getting in the way of decarbonisation
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
🚨Out today, acidification of the California Current🚨 Using corals and models we show regionally amplified acidification, due to the combo of CO2 uptake and remineralisation. This highlights potential risks to productive upwelling zones in an acidifying ocean 🌊🧪⚒️📈 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Fossil coral boron isotope data used to reconstruct California Current pCO2.  In a non-acidifying ocean, the data should fall on the grey 1:1 line.  Instead they fall below, indicating an acidifying ocean, and show greater acidification at greater depths (symbol colour), consistent with model simulations (dashed lines) - a phenomenon explained on the next figure! Upwelling zones, like the California Current System, experience amplified ocean acidification, as the anthropogenic CO2 taken up in the offshore waters  - which then get subducted and go on to feed the upwelling zone - is added to by carbon from remineralisation.  This means that the upwelling waters end up in a much more carbon-rich part of total alkalinity (TA) versus dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) space, where CO2 (and pH) contours are much closer together.  The result is that 100 ppm carbon uptake offshore results in a nearshore pCO2 change of 300 ppm.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
🚨New paper on Southern Ocean CO2🚨 Using a suite of Earth system models, Maddie Shankle et al show that better ventilation of intermediate waters in the North Pacific ends up reducing outgassing of CO2 in the Southern Ocean 🌊🧪⚒️🧵 @earthscista.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Southern Ocean CO2 outgassing and nutrient load reduced by a well-ventilated glacial North Pacific - Nature Communications
A better-ventilated North Pacific could have reduced the carbon of water upwelled in the Southern Ocean, reducing outgassing and revealing a remote influence on Southern Ocean biogeochemistry in glaci...
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St Andrews Earth & Environmental Sciences @earthscista.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Big congratulations to @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social & team on securing funding to launch the St Andrews Global Research Centre for Changing Climates! 🌍 📈 The centre will take an interdisciplinary approach, harnessing the breadth of expertise across St Andrews news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/the-...
news.st-andrews.ac.uk
The University of St Andrews announces two new Global Research Centres | University of St Andrews news
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Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
ICYM - Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation - Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on long-debunked research #climatecrisis www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation
Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on long-debunked research
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Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 31/07/2025
🚨 If you're interested in working on a coordinated response to the DOE climate report, please enter your info on this google form 🚨 Please RT this so as many people see it as possible. forms.gle/BL9xUAfRxA...
forms.gle
DOE climate report response form
We are collecting names to assemble a writing team to respond to the DOE climate working group report. If you'd like to contribute, enter your info below. At this point, there is no guarantee what we'll do (if anything), but we want to keep our options open by collecting names. If you have any further questions, feel free to email me. We are primarily looking for Ph.D. scientists at universities or government labs in appropriate fields. I realize that this will exclude some qualified people and I apologize, but we felt this was necessary for a variety of reasons.
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Anna Kramer @annackramer.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
🚨 At least 10 scientists, all cited in the Trump admin's new climate change report, told me that the report completely mischaracterizes their research. I also found five citations with significant errors, and a paragraph missing an important citation.
notus.org
‘A Serious Misuse of My Research’: Climate Scientists Say New Trump Energy Report Botches Their Work
“Our work has no relevance,” an astrobiologist whose research was cited in the administration’s climate change report said.
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Robert Rohde @rarohde.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
I've been taking some time to dive into the US EPA's Proposal to revoke the Endangerment Finding related to Greenhouse Gases. epa.gov/system/files... They put forth multiple lines of argument about why the current administration believes this should happen. 🧵
epa.gov
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Motherfucking wind farms…
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Howard Lee @hlee.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Fascinating paper 👇 not only providing evidence for ocean acidification in the end-Triassic mass extinction, but also wider discussion of the role of reverse weathering in prolonging the effects, and how this changed with the evolution of open ocean calcifying organisms. ⚒️🧪
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
🚨New paper just out on environmental upset at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary🚨 Using boron isotopes in fossil oysters, we find a major pulse of ocean acidification and CO2 rise, driving global warming and delaying ecosystem recovery following the end-Triassic mass extinction rdcu.be/ev6XV 🧪🌊⚒️🐚🧵
Journal title in Nature Communications
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Super excited to share our latest on CO2’s role in geological climate change! Using boron isotopes in ~300 million year old brachiopod shells, we show that rising CO2 from volcanic emissions drove a profound change in climate that ended the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age ⚒️🧪🌊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 marked the end of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age - Nature Geoscience
A pronounced increase in atmospheric CO2 coincided with warming at the end of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age, according to an 80-million-year-long boron isotope CO2 proxy record.
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ECIU @eciu.net · 12/12/2024
England has second worst harvest on record with fears mounting for 2025 Data released shows England experienced it’s second worst harvest since 1983 after record breaking wet weather last winter, with recent downpours leaving many farmers unable to drill crops again.
buff.ly
Confirmed: England has second worst harvest on record with fears…
Data released shows England experienced it’s second worst harvest since 1983 after record breaking wet weather last winter, with recent downpours leaving many farmers unable to drill crops again
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Nice thing about an 0830 sunrise is it’s easier to enjoy! Absolute beauty in St Andrews this morning.
A pretty sunrise with the spires of St Andrews visible in the background
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Today my amazing colleague, lab mate, and partner @oceanicandrea.bsky.social officially became the first female Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences @uniofstandrews.bsky.social. Let’s make sure it doesn’t take another 611 years to get the next ⚒️🧪🌊👩🏻‍🔬
Andrea Burke stands outside a University building at St Andrews in some epic grey and red academic robes with a fun wee hat on top!
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
We all think plastic pollution is a problem, and it is. In the nearly 70 years between 1950 and 2019, the world produced a total of ~9.5 billion tonnes of plastic. But all the plastic we have EVER produced weighs as much as CO₂ we emitted into the atmosphere during the first three months of 2024!
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Storm Bert incoming! Great visualisation from earth.nullschool.net
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Net zero emission means that CO₂ emissions are offset by removals, but what should count as CO₂ removal? This new study argues that countries should not count natural carbon sinks (like the ocean and forests) in their net zero emission targets.
nature.com
Geological Net Zero and the need for disaggregated accounting for carbon sinks - Nature
Nature - Geological Net Zero and the need for disaggregated accounting for carbon sinks
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Prof Richard Betts @richardabetts.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
I wrote this on 1.5°C eight years ago "Depending on climate sensitivity and natural variability, we could conceivably see the first year above 1.5°C as early as the late 2020s – but it is more likely to be later" It's looking like I was a bit too optimistic 🧵 theconversation.com/what-will-th...
theconversation.com
What will the world actually look like at 1.5°C of warming?
By the time we hit that temperature, further climate changes will already be locked in and unavoidable.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Major fanboy moment last night meeting Octopus founder and CEO and all round energy transition champion Greg Jackson! Super fun chat on CO2 and climate. NB - thanks to Octopus flexible tariff I can fill up the 280 miles range on my Kia for £4.50!!! (And I obvs told him to get onto Bluesky) 🐙 ⚡️🔌🚗
Selfie with Greg Jackson - super fun to chat to on energy, CO2, and climate, and how past climates can inform our future.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Hello new followers! Lovely to have you over here. I tend to post on how past climates help us understand where we’re heading, including changes in ocean circulation, acidity, sea level, and CO2, as shown below. 🌊⚒️🧪🐚📈
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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Repost this if you’re old enough to remember when they tried to convince us that “global warming stopped in 2008” (or whenever).
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 25/10/2024
Nice nerdy contribution for geochemistry peeps - we use a new sequential leaching method to get accurate carbonate d11B from mixed matrix samples, demonstrated by getting true d11B from a coral, even when we filled the sample with clay! 🧪🌊⚒️ agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
Graph showing results from a sequential leaching protocol for boron isotopes from a 50:50 mix of coral and marine clay. Oxidative cleaning removes high B phases from organics and some leachable silicate phases. Buffered ammonium acetate (labelled n01, n02) further removes leachable boron, including some from carbonate. Weak acid leaching (S1 onwards) then initially obtains true carbonate value, while further leaching with stronger acid starts to attack silicates.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 11/10/2024
Absolute scenes in Cellardyke!
Pink and green northern lights
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 10/10/2024
Northern lights over Scotland tonight - this is from outside our house in Cellardyke
Red and green northern lights in the sky over a churchRed and green northern lights in the sky in swirling bands
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 01/10/2024
New rapid attribution by Mike Wehner and colleagues at LBL shows that climate change increased Hurricane Helene's rainfall by up to 50% in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas, and made the event up to 20x more likely. Read: drive.google.com/file/d/14oq6...
Maps showing maximum rainfall from Hurricane Helene (left) and percentage change due to human-caused climate change (right).
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Philippe Quirion @philippequirion.bsky.social · 20/09/2024
🥳The last British coal power plants closes on October 1st 2024. In 2012, coal provided 40% of power, now 0%! Coal has been replaced by windpower, solar power and electricity savings, not fossil gas which has decreased since 2000. ember-climate.org/insights/res...
ember-climate.org
The UK’s journey to a coal power phase-out
The UK’s era of coal-free power begins on the 1st October 2024, after a rapid 12-year decline which has seen power sector emissions plummet by three quarters.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 20/09/2024
Really Phantastic piece of work!
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Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · 19/09/2024
Great new reconstruction - years in the making - for global temperatures over the last 500 million years. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature
A long-term record of global mean surface temperature (GMST) provides critical insight into the dynamical limits of Earth’s climate and the complex feedbacks between temperature and the broader Earth ...
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 11/09/2024
Leading a field trip on my birthday and students told me they’d found a really interesting deep sea worm they wanted me to check out. Opened the crate and found… a cake! (Only slightly gutted it wasn’t a worm) ⚒️🌊🧪
Box full of marine sampling gear… plus a cake!Me with a group of students on a small research vessel on the beautiful west coast of Scotland
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 07/09/2024
Recording of my #climate talk below, using Scott Denning’s 3 S’s framing - Simple, Serious, Solvable - to discuss climate science, impacts, and solutions. To see the greenhouse dance, VR Glasgow under Pliocene sea level, or a spectacular experiment fail check it out!🧪⚒️🌊 m.youtube.com/watch?v=_nPR...
m.youtube.com
Climate change: simple, serious, solvable?
YouTube video by The Royal Society of Edinburgh
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 03/09/2024
And if you’re interested in the far-field implications please come and check out Maddie Shankle’s poster which shows how a better ventilated glacial Pacific can reduce outgassing in the Southern Ocean! 🌊🧪⚒️
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 03/09/2024
Speaking today at #Challenger2024 on major changes in ocean circulation and biogeochemistry - if you can’t make it to the Changing Ocean session key points are in the pic below!
Picture of Earth from space focussed on the Pacific, which is so big it spans the whole image. Text notes my talk conclusions: that there was enhanced overturning circulation in the North Pacific at the LGM, and a persistent seesaw in circulation and biogeochemistry between the Atlantic and Pacific during rapid climate change events
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 02/09/2024
Excited to be speaking at the Roual Society if Edinburgh this Wednesday eve on how we can use the climates of the distant past to understand the climate of the future. Free to attend and open to all - please spread the word! ⚒️🧪https://rse.org.uk/event/climate-change-simple-serious-solvable/
rse.org.uk
Climate change: simple, serious, solvable?
How does climate change work? And can our actions truly make a difference? Join climate scientist Dr James Rae for this interactive talk as part of curious festival.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 21/06/2024
🚨3 yr Postdoc position in St Andrews🚨 Come join our lovely lab group and fill in a critical gap in reconstructions of Cenozoic CO2! Part of exciting TONIC project on Oligocene carbon, climate, ice w great peeps and lots of isotopes & paleoclimate ⚒️🧪 www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk
Researcher – AR3004NB
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
🚨St Andrews Earth & Environmental Sciences is hiring!🚨 Lecturer (Assist. Prof) in Earth Surface Processes. Areas could include sedimentary environments, processes, geology, geomorphology, stratigraphy, CCS, natural haz, or many more! Closes 17 July www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
Beautiful Sandy beaches surround the scenic pier and town of St Andrews, where the lovely folks in the School Earth and Environmental Sciences are looking for a new colleague!
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
🚨St Andrews Earth & Environmental Sciences is hiring!🚨 Lecturer (Assist. Prof) in Earth Surface Processes. Areas could include sedimentary environments, processes, geology, geomorphology, stratigraphy, CCS, natural haz, or many more! Closes 17 July www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
Beautiful Sandy beaches surround the scenic pier and town of St Andrews, where the lovely folks in the School Earth and Environmental Sciences are looking for a new colleague!
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 13/05/2024
🚨 New paper on rapid CO2 rise 🚨 Decadal-resolution ice core CO2 data show abrupt jumps during each “Heinrich Stadial” event of the last 50,000 years. We show these were linked with rapid Antarctic warming and coupled upwelling and convection in the Southern Ocean 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Southern Ocean drives multidecadal atmospheric CO2 rise during Heinrich Stadials | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
The last glacial period was punctuated by cold intervals in the North Atlantic region that culminated in extensive iceberg discharge events. These ...
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Molly Trudgill @mollytrudgill.bsky.social · 29/03/2024
So excited our method is out in the world 🎉 if you've ever wanted to prepare samples for d11B anaylsis faster, easier, with low procedural blanks and great reproducibility you should take a look!
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Oscar Branson @oscarbranson.bsky.social · 04/01/2024
One for the carbon chemistry nerds... Check out our preprint about Kgen - a new, cross-platform tool for calculating ocean carbon speciation constants in modified seawater composition! biomin.esc.cam.ac.uk/research/pap...
biomin.esc.cam.ac.uk
New Paper: Kgen!
Kgen: reducing inconsistencies in seawater carbon calculations.
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 25/12/2023
It may not be a white Christmas but at least it’s a green one (UK National Grid status from grid.iamkate.com)
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James Rae @mudwaterclimate.bsky.social · 21/12/2023
Beautiful polar stratospheric clouds over Scotland this evening (and by evening I may mean 4pm but we’re at 56N and it is solstice eve!)
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