Michael Tippett 🎃

cover of The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant Nonfiction, 2005 recommend by molly young who says: I'm batting 1.000 with this book recommendation, in that nobody I've given it to doesn't wind up reading it in under 3 exhilarated days. If you're the type who believes people when they say "Trust me," skip the next paragraphs— dart off to reserve The Golden Spruce at your local library or buy it on eBay for $5, even if it doesn't seem like your thing based on cover or subject matter. Trust me!

one from the books about trees category

A new and better way to keep tabs on El Niño and La Niña » Yale Climate Connections Developed in response to a warming world, NOAA’s revised scale more precisely identifies which episodes are likely to have the biggest impacts.

I love writing about geeky science that has real-world implications. In this case, a new NOAA index does a more solid job of classifying El Niño and La Niña—and that helps explain some recent puzzling events. @climateconnections.bsky.social

yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/02/a-ne...

ms word—doing the same thing over and over again and getting different results

Scooby-Doo meme with Fred removing the mask of climate change to unveil RONI

cpc official www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/ana...

A Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS)-based synthetic event set of U.S. tornado outbreaks Abstract. Severe convective storms (SCS) are important drivers of global insured losses, and tornado outbreaks – when many tornadoes occur within a short time span – cause extreme and localized loss o...

🌪️ Happy to share this new paper from @mktippett.bsky.social and I. We constructed a synthetic event set for U.S. tornado outbreaks. It has 200,000+++ events, which can be boiled down to resolve localized risk, and we detect robust shifts in activity due to ENSO and trends.
doi.org/10.5194/nhes...

evergreen

Screenshot of part of our paper "Increasing Frequency and Persistence of the Summertime Greenland High Regime Not Captured by a Seasonal Prediction Model Very Large Ensemble" in GRL

📣 New paper with Lorenzo Polvani published in @agu.org GRL!

Increasing Frequency and Persistence of the Summertime Greenland High Regime Not Captured by a Seasonal Prediction Model Very Large Ensemble

Open access: doi.org/10.1029/2025...

@earthscista.bsky.social @lamont.columbia.edu

poster for the 2025 movie the secret agent

another good one from last year

winter so much colder than summer—what you need to know

From Climate Catastrophes to Space Romance––Scientific American’s Favorite Science Books of the Year Scientific American unveils its first-ever best fiction and nonfiction books of the year, spotlighting stories that blend science, imagination and unforgettable voices.

I was talking to a colleague on Friday and he said, oh, I didn’t know you wrote a book?? and clearly I have not been obnoxious enough anout this. So: I wrote a book. Some people thought it was good. You should read it
www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/epis...

are there initialized dynamical forecasts of global mean temperature that you think are worth looking at? either seasonal forecasts that go out 12 months or WMO decadal?

It really is the greatest business plan in the history of capitalism: “We will create God and then ask it for money.” — matt levine

A climate projections 101:

good luck publishing that in a high-impact journal 🤓

headline: Meta Plans to Shift Spending Away From the Metaverse Mark Zuckerberg's bet on immersive online worlds has lost the company more than $77 billion world’s worst avatar, likely sans legs

especially important since the iri dl is on its last legs

Abstract El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences global climate variability, including Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. The Niño‐3.4 index has long been used to characterize ENSO. However, new ENSO indices have been proposed in recent years. Here, in the context of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity, we compared Niño‐3.4 to three modern ENSO indices: the relative Niño‐3.4 index, the ENSO Longitudinal Index (ELI), and a Pacific sea surface temperature zonal gradient index. We examined the association of their August– October values with central Pacific convection, tropical cyclone‐related variables in the Atlantic (e.g., vertical wind shear and potential intensity), and Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. We also assessed the skill of seasonal forecasts of the ENSO indices and the skill of index‐based forecasts of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. We found that the modern ENSO indices outperform the traditional Niño‐3.4 index in nearly all aspects, with the relative Niño‐3.4 index showing statistically significant advantages in many cases.

This new paper is about which of Mike’s favorite topics:
a. ENSO
b. tropical cyclones
c. NMME forecasts
d. all of the above

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

keep an eye out for regime change

more chiclet, more better

The importance of weather and climate science in the insurance industry Click on the article title to read more.

The importance of weather and climate science in the insurance industry

"Insight" article in @rmets.org Weather from @mattpriestley.bsky.social & @hcbloomfield19.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1002/wea....

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
The correlation between ENSO and Tropical Cyclone activity in the Pacific has strengthened in the recent decades.
Meanwhile, there is a multidecadal oscillation in the ENSO-Atlantic TCs teleconnection strength.

🔗 dx.doi.org/10.1029/2025...

Announcement- The Data Library will soon shut down. Click here to learn more. IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library The IRI Data Library is a powerful and freely accessible online data repository and analysis tool that allows a user to view, analyze, and download hundreds of terabytes of climate-related data through a standard web browser. It is a powerful tool that offers the following capabilities at no cost to the user: • access any number of datasets; • create analyses of data ranging from simple averaging to more advanced EOF analyses using the Ingrid Data Analysis Language; • monitor present climate conditions with maps and analyses in the Maproom; • create visual representations of data, including animations; • download data in a variety of commonly-used formats, including GIS-compatible formats.

The IRI DL is a uniquely valuable resource for NOAA (and more) climate data. Over the last 27 years it had a huge impact (positive!) on my career. So long, and thanks for all the fish!

reviewer #2 we thank 🙏

Also have you wondered about using ADT-HURSAT for intensification analysis but didn’t want to download nine csv files from the SI of a PNAS paper?

Quantile regression coefficient estimates (blue lines) from synthetic data (a) without jitter, (b) with jitter uniformly distributed on the interval ±1.94 kt, and (c) with jitter uniformly distributed on the interval ±2.5 kt. The true quantile regression coefficient value is −1 (red dashed line). Dashed gray lines are 95% confidence intervals. Solid blue circles indicate statistical significance at the 5% level.

Statistical methods matter: The 5-kt increments in best-track intensity data have a substantial negative impact on quantile estimates and quantile regression. Using the right jitter (adding small random numbers, not drinking too much coffee) can help

Other highlights:
- Prior estimates of intensification trends were overconfident
- A new storm metric called lifetime maximum 24-h intensification which shows upward trends in its top quantiles and broad increases during La Niña
- 24-h intensification also increases during La Niña conditions

Atlantic LMI quantile regression (QR) coefficients for the (e) trend and (f) Niño-3.4. Colors indicate start year shown in legend. 95% confidence intervals are shown (red dashed lines) for the 1982–2024 coefficients. Filled circles indicate statistically significant (5% level) coefficients. Quantile values are shown for reference in (e) and (f) for the full 1982–2024 data.

We found upward trends in the lifetime maximum intensity (LMI) of the most intense tropical storms (not new) and broad decreases in LMI during El Niño conditions (new?)

Have you wondered about trends & ENSO variability in Atlantic TC intensity/intensification? @scamargo.bsky.social and I did.
journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...