Sleeping and camping in California's Wilderness requires a permit. The most desired permit starts in Yosemite National Park to hike the 220 mile John Muir Trail (JMT) through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks as well as Ansel Adams, John Muir, and Golden Trout Wilderness. This spectacular and scenic hike along the spine of the Sierra Nevada takes 3-4 weeks to complete without ever crossing a road or seeing a car. Chances to score a permit are slim (less than 1:10), so about 9 out of 10 applicants fail to win this "Golden Ticket" via a lottery. Last year I was one of the 9 and thus had to be creative, because I wanted to hike the JMT. Here is my "solution" from 2024:

READ MORE

The Attribution Science and Climate Law Conference brought together scientists, legal experts, policymakers and advocates to explore how advancements in climate attribution science can shape litigation, policy and governance....

READ MORE

Thanks to the readers who already tested the first file should share the code/data. I've updated it, and I ask y'all to test again. Good luck! AdjustDatazip You can help this blog; feel free to donate at my wee dragon...

READ MORE

From internationally collaborative missions to crowdfunding for space tech, when we work together we can make great things happen....

READ MORE

The processes that form continental crust from the denser basaltic rocks of the upper mantle may make the lower lithosphere denser than the underlying mantle. One theory holds that the lower lithosphere splits away and sinks into the mantle in a process called foundering. Conclusive evidence of foundering, however, has been hard to come by.

READ MORE

This is the first in a two-parter. At this time of year, posts making bold statements about what happened last year and what we plan to do this year start to become prominent. The last few years I have spent a few hours in the first week of January reviewing what worked, what was fun and what was cool, what was awful and what definitely was a waste of time. I'm not honestly sure that any of this is of interest to anyone except me, so read on, but you have been warned..

READ MORE

On December 11, 2024, while taking part in AGU's 2024 Annual Meeting, I attended a press conference hosted by experts from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Michigan that focuses on the serious risks posed by space debris in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). As we are heading towards an increasingly crowded space environment, the question on everyone's mind is: What can we do to prevent the runaway cascade of space debris that could make space exploration and satellite operations untenable?

READ MORE

Here are some pictures of some recently found oyster fossils. They appear to be an Illymatogyra arietina (Roemer). The fossil was found in the Georgetown Formation of Austin Texas USA. Oysters like these lived in the Cretaceous Period. Thanks to Kenn...

READ MORE

The post The EU Nature Restoration Law is here. Do we have what it takes to make it work? appeared first on The Nature of Cities.

READ MORE

The fire in Los Angeles County burned through nearly 24,000 acres in one week in January 2025. Read More......

READ MORE

As California battles devastating wildfires, our researchers are helping to make sense of how they became so destructive, and what's needed for recovery....

READ MORE

Last year, I published a woodworking year in review which you all seemed to really enjoy. 2024 was a relatively slow year for woodworking. With a laser focus on getting the OpenCTD project across the finish line, I ended up doing far more work on ele...

READ MORE

In the Andes Mountains today, water managers are using both ancient and modern approaches to improve supplies of this vital resource. Novel methods, including those based on Indigenous knowledge, are needed to help meet the challenges of population g...

READ MORE

In 1912, Alfred Wegener published his proposal that continents had moved. He presented various lines of evidence, of which the best remembered is the fact that the opposite shores of the Atlantic ocean fit together as pieces of a puzzle. There was mu...

READ MORE

Are you an Early Career Scientist (ECS) who is also a member of the European Geosciences Union? Have your say and provide feedback on ECS activities and opportunities by completing the EGU Early Career Scientist survey!

READ MORE

The title question posed by our lead story this month has been irresistible to Earth scientists for generations: How great was the Great Oxidation Event?

READ MORE

Quick backstory: this post at Adam Mastroianni's Experimental History led me to this post at Nothing Human, and poking around there led me to another good'un: "Shallow feedback hollows you out". That post really hit for me, and it made me think about SV-POW! Especially this bit:

READ MORE

Network, think, and speak your mind: Here are some ways to engage with the climate crisis....

READ MORE

A NASA airborne instrument captured images of the fire's aftermath in and around Altadena. Read More......

READ MORE

Faults can slip suddenly as earthquakes, but also slowly and still energetically as slow-slip events. Slow-slip events are observed in subduction zones that host powerful megathrust earthquakes, but how these slow movements are generated is still under debate.

READ MORE

This image is of a Heteroptera  (Latreille, 1810) leaf bug fossil. The insect existed in the early Cretaceous Period. Fossil was discovered in Liaoning, China. Fossil was on display at the Natural History Museum Vienna (Naturhistorisches Museum Wi...

READ MORE

The perpetually restless and occasionally explosive volcano in New Zealand has been emitting steam, volcanic gases, and a bit of ash.   Read More......

READ MORE

The former president's progressive climate agenda demonstrates how leadership can inform long-term climate action....

READ MORE

Preliminary year-end Colorado River numbers are stark. Total basin-wide storage for the last two years has stabilized, oscillating between 30 and 27 maf (million acre-feet), where storage sits at the start of 2025[1]. That is lower than any sustained period since the River's reservoirs were built (Fig. 1). Stable is better than declining, but we did not succeed in rebuilding reservoir storage during 2024's excellent snowpack but modest inflow. Although reservoir storage significantly increased after the gangbuster 2023 snowmelt year, we have not protected the storage gained in 2024 when inflow to Lake Powell was ~85% of normal from a 130% of normal snowpack. We can't rely on frequent repeats of 2023; we must do better at increasing storage in modest inflow years like 2024.

READ MORE

The Southern Ocean's role in global climate and biogeochemical cycles is significantly influenced by mesoscale eddies - rotating vortices of water that persist for months. Keppler et al. [2024] combine satellite observations of over three million such eddies with biogeochemical measurements from autonomous floats to quantify their impact. Their analysis reveals how eddy dynamics create distinct patterns: anticyclonic eddies push surface waters downward, reducing local concentrations of dissolved inorganic carbon and nutrients, while cyclonic eddies pull deeper waters upward, enriching surface waters. These effects extend to 1,500 meters and show important seasonal and regional variations. While the net impact of eddies on Southern Ocean carbon uptake is modest (around 5% of the total), their influence can be substantial in specific seasons and regions. The study provides crucial insights for improving climate models and understanding marine ecosystem dynamics.

READ MORE