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Claire G. Griffin

@polargriffin.bsky.social
3.7K followers 2.1K following 838 posts

Asst Prof, Ex-pat Texan, biogeocheminist and arctic scientist, excited about organic matter and rivers. Water science, fluffy pet photos, #QueerinSTEM, and crafty things.

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Reposted by Claire G. Griffin
Aaron Becker @aaronjbecker.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Every river in North America, every day for two years. The combined flow to the sea sinks as low as 53,000 m³/s in winter and swells past 290,000 by late June, more than quadrupling each spring. Data: GloFAS, @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social #rivers #dataviz #hydrology
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 8h
I think my mom had to take a crying 4 year old Claire out of the Aladdin theater in 1992 - specifically bc the Genie was TOO LOUD and TOO BLUE.
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Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social · 16h
September 2026 was the 2nd warmest September on record (2023 was the warmest). 20% of the Earth had their single warmest September on record (since 1940). This is twice the area that was record warm in 2023 (10.1%).
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
You're gonna need a bigger chart
Chart showing the daily sea surface temperature for the Nino region of the Pacific, with a red line for 2026 shooting off above every other year in record-setting territory, with the latest spot right at the top of the chart
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Robert Simmon @rsimmon.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
With both Lake Powell and Lake Mead at record-lows, here’s a look at how their water levels have varied since Powell was filled in 1980. Neither has recovered from a severe drought in the early 2020s, while Colorado River flows continue to drop. #dataviz #climate #globalwarming
Two graphs of water stored in Lake Powell (left) and lake Mead (right). The data are measured over the water year, which runs from October 1st to October 1st. Years when the lake level increased are marked in blue, years when they decreased are marked in red. Levels in Lake Powell maxed out at about 24-million-acre–feet  in the early 1980s, and are currently just over 5-million-acre-feet. Lake Mead was just over 25-million acre-feet in the early 1980s and late 1990s, but is now just under 7-million acre-feet.
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Erin Hotchkiss @fluvialbenthos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
New co-authored paper led by Jasmine Krause @hydrojaz.bsky.social! "A systematic review of the methods & magnitudes of dissolved #oxygen exchanges in streams and rivers" www.frontiersin.org/journals/wat... @wardhydro.bsky.social #WaDESFA 💧🌎🧪👩‍🔬
Image showing the relative magnitudes and ranges of whole-stream O2 fluxes (gross primary production & ecosystem respiration), water column O2 production & respiration, benthic O2 production & respiration, hyporheic O2 respiration & sediment O2 demand, and air-water gas exchange velocities. Water column fluxes are typically lower than whole-stream, benthic, or hyporheic fluxes (but [not shown in graph] rarely measured in the same time and place).
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Reposted by Claire G. Griffin
Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 02/10/2026
This is pretty wild... the average global sea surface temperature (outside of the polar regions) is still above 70°F (21.1°C) through the end of September. This is significantly above the prior record. We'll cover this in our October climate briefing: climatecentral-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi... 🌊
Line graph time series of daily global mean sea surface temperatures from 1982 to 2026. This year is currently at record high for this time of year. Data is from NOAA OISSTv2.1, and the graphic is created by Climate Central at https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-briefings.
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Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net · 01/10/2026
Records come and records go. But this is one for the ages. The preliminary Nino 3.4 sea-surface temperature anomaly is now at a record 3.23°C above the 1991-2020 baseline. This crushes the previous daily record set in 1982 by over 1.14°C. The Climate 8-ball is looking up.
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I have a group of friends that has over the past year read a bunch of bog books, mostly fiction - Bog Queen, Ghost Wall, Bog Wife, Annie Proulx's book on bogs and fens. Excited to continue with the theme with Boglands!
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Dr. Merritt Rae Turetsky @queenofpeat.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Help me make this year the YEAR OF THE BOG. My passion for boglands featured in the @nytopinion.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Boglands Are Museums That Help Protect Us From Climate Change
Bogs store carbon, and preserve histories too.
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Dr. Sam Anderson @sam-science.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Happy new water-year! Welcome to hydrological 2027!
Mountains reflect on Widgeon CreekBraided streams on Devon Island, NU.Copper Island on Shuswap LakeReflections on Duffy Lake
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Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
January-September 2026 was the warmest Jan-Sep on record for the Contiguous U.S. since 1895 according to PRISM climate data. Seems red. 🔥🔥🔥
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Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
September 2026 was the warmest September on record for the Contiguous U.S. since 1895 according to PRISM climate data. 🔥🔥🔥
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
OMB's focus on NIH and NSF, which has confused a lot of folks, pretty much boils down to stopping money going to universities.
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Eos @eos.org · 01/10/2026
Peat bogs are weird and wonderful repositories of Earth science, history, and ecology—and a great theme for our October issue. eos.org/agu-news/sci... Read more: eos.org/themes/secre...
eos.org
Science on Repeat, Peat, Peat - Eos
Scientists and Knowledge Keepers, industries, and communities are all seeking answers—and finding even more questions—buried in carbon-rich wetlands.
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AGU Hydrology H3S @agu-h3s.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Rivers facing #HydrologicalExtremes, Round 1, Matchup 1: Lake Chad Basin vs Zambezi River. Check out facts below and VOTE HERE until 10/5: www.agu-h3s.org/rivercup #RiverCup2026
Photo of the drying Lake Chad, the outlet of the Lake Chad Basin.Photo of the Zambezi River
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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
165 years ago TODAY, Charles Darwin had a normal one. "I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.— I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids & today I hate them worse than everything…" I think about this letter a lot.
darwinproject.ac.uk
To Charles Lyell   1 October [1861] | Darwin Correspondence Project
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Season of Scaryanne Denton 🧡🎃 @mariannedenton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Happy New Year, ya water nerds! From my watershed to yours, may we preserve & protect in-stream flows. My flow this morning? Whites Creek → Steamboat Creek → Truckee River → Pyramid Lake
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Data center construction has migrated to places of low resistance: poor, often Black areas where corrupt deals are commonplace and the harms to residents invisible. Lowndes County, Alabama, in the heart of the Black Belt, is one of those places. 🧵 prospect.org/2026/10/01/d...
prospect.org
‘I Know I Couldn’t Live Here’: Standing Up to a Data Center in Alabama’s Black Belt - The American Prospect
Faced with little transparency about a mammoth facility, Lowndes County fights back.
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Nathalie Maréchal, PhD @nathaliemarechal.net · 01/10/2026
Some progressives (ahem, Bernie) appear to have fully been taken in by the cult of AI. Others seem confused about the difference between the “computer god —> paper clips” scenario vs “shitty agentic AI fucks things up bc the company was careless” - which is what has been happening lately.
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
lol right? Has NYT opinion ever published a higher ed essay from a community college prof? Even one?
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Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I think writing is important to thinking. But, sure, yeah I can imagine really in-depth conversation sand long oral exams can show student understanding. That's just not possible for, say, an adjunct comp teacher with 100 students each semester.
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Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
My main thought with this article is really need AI takes from outside elite liberal arts schools bubble. “Just have in-depth searching conversations w/ your handful of students and then give each 45 min oral exams!” This has no relevance to most professors or students at most schools in the country
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VAW Glaciology @vaw-glaciology.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Switzerland's glacier report 2026 is out. Swiss glaciers have lost 5% of their ice volume this year. Only the last 5 years accounted for nearly 20% of the total ice loss across Switzerland. The numbers are devastating. Full report → doi.glamos.ch/pubs/annualr...
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Annie Waldman @anniewaldman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
NEW: As Trump’s White House and influencers keep touting the unproven benefits of raw milk, hundreds across the country are falling ill from outbreaks. Some people get severe indigestion. And some nearly die. Here's the story of one toddler who drank it. 🧵👇 www.propublica.org/article/cali...
propublica.org
A Girl Nearly Died After Drinking Raw Milk. The State Did Little to Punish the Unlicensed Farmer Who Sold It.
California is teeming with black-market dairies, propped up by consumer demand fueled by misinformation. With evidence against one raw goat milk farm, regulators could have sought punitive action. But...
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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 29/09/2026
GOD BLESS NIGELLA “I don’t approve of talking about food as naughty” I have been needing bake off to say that for YEARS. Food is a pleasure, not a guilty pleasure!
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
To quote a friend, I would give so much to not be living in the stupidest timeline
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Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 29/09/2026
I am NOT going to write a NSF proposal related to “Super Intelligence for Geosciences.”
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Dr. Wendy Panero @mineraltoplanet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Register today and share with your colleagues!
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NMBurrito @taberwest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is it people. The average ocean temperature in the Nino 3.4 region of the Pacific Ocean is now 29.822C. The previous record was 29.815C in 2015, 2 months later than today's date. That means the heating isn't done yet.
29.822C temperature in the Pacific Ocean Nino 3.4 region breaking the previous record in 2015.
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Sven Gustafson @sveng.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Not everything is terrible; Native fish found in Lower Rouge River for 1st time in over 100 years 🐟 www.freep.com/story/news/e...
freep.com
A native fish not seen in the Lower Rouge River in a century is back
DNR, local conservation groups hailing the Greenside darter's return to the Lower Rouge as a positive result from years of cleanup and restoration.
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Aaron Becker @aaronjbecker.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Lake Erie turned toward autumn in a single week. Every hour of its surface currents, 16 to 23 September 2026, colored by water temperature: the surface lost about 6°F in seven days. Data: NOAA Great Lakes Operational Forecast System (model) #LakeErie #GreatLakes #dataviz
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Was just reading estimates that college enrollment in the US will likely fall off 10-20% in the next 20 years (lower fertility, possibly fewer immigrants and foreign students). And it's actually much worse than that because enrollment will NOT fall off at places like Harvard and MIT.
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James Ryan @jdryan08.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The combined undergraduate and graduate student populations of all Ivy League schools is about 140,000 students. The CUNY system alone is 250,000.
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I want to believe. Could my home state really go blue?
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Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
'the science of archaeology offers abundant evidence of anthropogenic planetary change over thousands of years ... Archaeology can and should play a central role in the science of global environmental change'
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I don't honestly look at Facebook that often, but the feed there does sometimes have me exactly pegged
A messy hand lettered flyer from a program like Microsoft paint that complains about AI before telling the viewer to try fiber arts and advertising for a regional fiber festival. Theres also one of the "cool S"s to get nostalgic millennial interest
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What's behind this tidal wave of epidemics? In the largest study ever conducted on emerging infectious diseases, we show that the popular explanation - "our relationship with nature is out of balance" - doesn't hold up. Out now in Nature, after half a decade of work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases - Nature
Emerging infectious disease outbreak risks are ubiquitous worldwide, and highest in landscapes where people, livestock and fragmented natural ecosystems coexist, but detection and data ...
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Lizzie Wade @lizziewade.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Thrilled that APOCALYPSE was a finalist for @sciencewriters.org's Science and Society Award! www.nasw.org/2026Sciencei...
nasw.org
Announcing the 2026 NASW Science in Society Journalism Award winners
The National Association of Science Writers and its Awards Committee are pleased to announce the winners of the <strong>2026 NASW Science in Society Journalism Awards.</strong> This year, NASW is awar...
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Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 23/09/2026
Wednesday El Niño update - Unsurprisingly, sea surface temperatures still remain record warm across the central Pacific. But when discussing headlines like the “strongest” El Niño, it’s an oversimplification to ignore the role of long-term tropical warming (from climate change). Data: OISSTv2.1 🌊
Line graph time series of daily sea surface temperature anomalies in the Nino3.4 region. Years are shown from 1982 to 2025 in shades of blue to light yellow, and 2026 is shown in red. Climatologically, the largest anomalies are during the boreal winter in terms of magnitude. Data is from OISSTv2.1. Map of September 21, 2026 average sea surface temperature anomalies in the ENSO monitoring regions. Data is from NOAA OISSTv2.1 with anomalies relative to a 1991-2020 baseline.Graphic showing the 4-week change in sea surface temperature anomalies across the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean from August 22, 2026 to September 21, 2026. Data is from NOAA OISSTv2.1
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Does anyone know whether Phys.Org uses LLMs to generate their news stories? I'm talking with students about finding quality sources and their about page says this - "hand-processed" is a weird phrase!
Phys.org publishes quality articles daily, offering some of the most comprehensive coverage of sci-tech developments worldwide. All news stories are hand-processed and curated by qualified editors, ensuring high-quality, targeted reporting free from the problems of feed or bot aggregation.
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Virginia Werewoolf @woolfianjosh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hwæt! We Capūlets in gærdagum þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða Montagūen ellen fremedon
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Local stream restoration projects and all the people working on them are what give me hope in this day and age. Locally, we have people doing dam removals, large wood installations, culvert replacements. There are a lot of people, from all walks of life, who are working to help streams and rivers!
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Ben Goldfarb @bengoldfarb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The dam removals that get the most press tend to be superlative western ones, like the Klamath and Elwha—big rivers, big fish. For @biographic.bsky.social, I wrote about some equally vital, under-the-radar projects now restoring eastern streams, one old mill dam at a time. #AlewivesAreTheNewSalmon
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Jeff Berardelli @weatherprof.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It’s official, the 2026 El Niño has broken a record for the highest ocean anomaly in 170+ years… Incredibly reaching that threshold a full 2 months ahead of 2015’s record of +3.02C set on Nov 18th. See that red line? That’s 2026. Every other bold line are the strongest El Niño’s on record. 1/
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Claire G. Griffin @polargriffin.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Had reason to look up some stats on the Great Lakes (we're calculating residence times in class) and the EPA has rebranded Ontario to Lake America. Somehow I hadnt internalized it was actually happening and not just a crank social media post! 🤢
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/09/2026
i mean, just look at how the populists talked about the railroad barons and others like them. "The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes, unprecedented in the history of the world, while their possessors despise the republic and endanger liberty."
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
AI didn’t “go rogue.” People connected a computer system they know can mess with another computer system in unpredictable ways to less advanced computer system and it messed with that computer system in unpredicted ways. As @tressiemcphd.bsky.social argues, don’t lose sight that *people* did that.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Panic Won’t Fix the Looming A.I. Threat. Politics Will.
The threats from A.I. are real — and they’re ones we know how to deal with.
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This animated map shows Europe from 24,100 BC until today. The crust sags under the ice and rebounds after it, and the sea drops 130 m as the water is locked up. The interactive version allows you to tilt the map: buff.ly/Pfj3exH
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