iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 06/10/2026

This map from Minneapolis Public Schools shows their own estimate of future demographic change of school-age kids the next 10 years. One guess which areas where they're proposing to close schools...

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 17/08/2026

I support your goldblumming on this subject. I keep my eyes shut for more than half of most talks.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 04/08/2026

Thanks for the correction, Jeff. I figure the EM-DAT number has to be an error. '89 was the record-holder for area burned until 2023 but even so, there's no way that particular geographic distribution of fires adds up to such a large loss (in US dollars, no less).

Map showing wildfires across Canada in 1989. Obtained from https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/en/fire-history

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 15/07/2026

Behold, the face of someone who knows he is definitely not allowed on the couch, nevermind reclining on the pillow…!

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 28/06/2026

I'm saddened by the news that Rex Adams has passed. Rex was always so unfailingly positive and generous and had an outsized influence on generations of tree-ring scientists. I will always be grateful for him treating my mom like a VIP when she visited me at LTRR. A "fun guy", always and forever.

A photo of Rex Adams, who mentored countless tree-ring scientists through his position at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 16/06/2026

If I was still a paleoscientist, this paragraph could provide the raison d'etre for a whole career's worth of work.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 01/06/2026

post a poster you used to have in your room, apartment, or house. even though I let them go a long time ago I still like both of these.

Dexter Gordon blowing smoke while holding a tenor saxophone.

The international poster for 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 22/02/2026

Next week I head to Orlando for a big insurance meeting on natural catastrophes. I will give a short talk on climate-related perils from the perspective of a former academic and government scientist. And I'll do it in my own weird style. Behold! My four most inscrutable slides:

Purple dominoes in the middle of a fall.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 29/11/2025

I may be retired from dendro, but I'm still an easy mark for any tree-ring inspired pottery.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 20/11/2025

In this example from Bulletin 17C, the estimated discharge for the 100-yr flood (aka 1% AEP) is somewhere between *squinting* 4,000 cfs and 20,000 cfs. Even with an actual observed flood close to 10,000 cfs to act as a reality check for the estimate, that is just a massive range.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 13/11/2025

me ,every time I am asked to comment about the industry that employs me:

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 12/11/2025

Inspired by all of tonight’s aurora photos, here’s my all-time favorite accounting of the Northern Lights. The year: 1859 The observer: José Inés Ruiz The place: Montería, Colombia. COLOMBIA. 🇨🇴8°45’ freaking north!!

"Pitch-black storm-clouds furrowed by blazes of strange resplendence; immense flaming tongues and blinding igneous globules that disappeared only to light back seconds after, giving the impression of a hundred erupting volcanoes. And, in the midst of those flaming spaces, a humongous S was clearly drawn in the sky, and it remained for as long the phenomenon lasted, beginning at three in the morning."

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 14/10/2025

I know he doesn’t like wearing his rain jacket, but I tell him, he looks good in it.

A brown and white Labrador-collie dog wearing a red rain jacket and standing on the side walk.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 23/08/2025

This motto, which was reviled way back for its first iteration, actually turned out to be spot on a decade or two later. We had a great visit back home with my mom - the Forks, Rainbow Stage, the Zoo were all fun, with friendly Manitobans at all our stops.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 15/08/2025

I don't know who designed this hoodie, but clearly they made it with exactly me in mind. The tree-ring pattern is even oak, which is just perfect.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 08/07/2025

just the worst part. "Value" only applies to the cost of rebuilding the structures, not the lives of those people killed by the flood.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 24/06/2025

it was kinda ironic a few years ago when Taleb himself had his NY house flooded way worse than he thought possible based on risk estimates made from observed history.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 24/06/2025

hey insurers, before you sent out any notices, juuuust maybe cross-check your non-renewals list against Google Scholar to avoid discovering you've become the lead anecdote in like, a BUNCH of forthcoming public lectures and articles on insurability by the leader in the field.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 11/06/2025

En comparaison, Montréal fait paraître Minneapolis très endormie.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 08/05/2025

Me, a climate scientist, listening to an insurance CEO export their industry to fight misinformation with a dedicated information campaign:

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 06/05/2025

It would be more correct to say that if you don’t care whether decision is correct, you can use AI. But if you want to get it right, get a human to do it.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 05/05/2025

That has to be absolutely the least probable event that’s ever occurred in my lifetime. #winnipegjets

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 01/05/2025

Next week I'm giving a talk on climate change to a bunch of insurance agents at a MLB stadium and am real happy to be able to apply my weird presentation vibe to this topic+audience+venue:

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 25/02/2025

Every time I visit Florida, it reminds me of the episode of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon where he goes searching for Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth and ends up fighting the Lizard.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 23/02/2025

Jessica made this residual plot as part of a brief comment on forecast evaluation by @h4wkm0th.bsky.social. It doesn’t sort predictions by when they were made within the season but even so, the agreement is already pretty strong.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 18/02/2025

never in my life, anywhere I've lived, have I seen egg rationing, but there it is.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 04/02/2025

I have really enjoyed listening to this podcast, Neil, over last several days as I take Figgy for his very short walks during this cold spell. It's so nice to hear you talk about tree rings one more time.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 04/02/2025

desperately trying to register for summer camps at the @bellmuseum.bsky.social and running over and over into this error message. Anybody Minnesota-peeps know how to fix it?

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 03/02/2025

Any climate | insurance | econ folks want to start a journal-club style reading group digging into the weeds on this?

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 25/01/2025

That’s great Cristi, there will be a good cohort of sci-folks to cut to the heart of things.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 31/12/2024

I do feel bad that I can only communicate through memes today, but it’s because we just welcomed this handsome little gentleman to our household.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 30/12/2024

I completely agree we should always take a skeptical view of commercial climate risk products AND ALSO acknowledge that it's really freaking hard to correctly take the measure of things we've seen happen either once or never.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 12/12/2024

I love all of this and will be sending it around to our team BUT I PARTICULARLY APPRECIATE the comment that, while GCMs are OK, if you really want to get serious about realistic future scenarios, you gotta bring in the tree rings. #🌲💍

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 10/12/2024

This happens like 90% of the time these days.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 18/11/2024

I don't often have the chance to give academic talks any more, but when I do... well , they tend to be all about the same thing, I guess... (Plus tree rings, because I miss them)

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 15/11/2024

There's a lot of new folks around here and the AGU Fall Meeting is coming up, so I figured I should toss up my EXTREMELY-DETAILED decision tree on font use to help anybody who may be soon getting started on their talks and posters.

Simple flow chart to help you decide if you should use Comic Sans on your AGU talk poster.

Unless you are Richard Alley, never ever use Comic Sans.

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 12/11/2024

Every time somebody publishes an article in one of those ‘npg’ journals, I always get fooled into thinking it’s funkier than it really is.

Cover art for Prince & the New Power Generation, Live at Glam Slam

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Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 14/10/2024

In an unexpected twist, now that I'm not a prof any more, I feel more free to do talks my way, without worrying that certain people won't take me seriously.

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