Mike Byrne

Climate Dynamics Lab is visiting Schloss Ringberg this week for the inaugural "EUCLIDYAN" workshop, hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology! Lots of science, collaboration + building lasting connections with groups working on similar topics @earthscista.bsky.social

We are hiring a Chair in Earth Sci (Full Prof) @earthscista.bsky.social! Very limited teaching/admin for (at least) first 5 years. Atmosphere/oceans/climate firmly in remit. Reach out if you have questions! Deadline 23 March 2026

www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/I/...

Models and observations agree on fewer and milder midlatitude cold extremes even over recent decades of rapid Arctic warming Midlatitude extreme cold events have decreased in severity and frequency over recent decades, in agreement with models.

In a warming climate, extreme cold can still occur.

The occurrence of an extreme cold event does not mean that climate change caused it, nor does it mean climate change isn't real.

But on sufficiently long timescales, extreme cold events are occurring less often.

doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Research Assistant position closing 25th: my.corehr.com/pls/nuimrecr... to work on the @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social contract on access to global land meteorological holdings.

Great to be back @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social to present a seminar on understanding the physics of climate change over land. Catching 'Playboy of the Western World' @nationaltheatre.org.uk is an added bonus!

2025 was an exceptional year for the Earth's climate
⬆️ Warmest ocean heat content
⬆️ Tied as second warmest surface temps
⬆️ Second warmest troposphere
⬆️ Record high sea level and GHGs
⬇️ Record low winter Arctic ice

New State of the Climate over at Carbon Brief: www.carbonbrief.org/...

AI does math proofs. Very interesting thread from a top mathematician.
mathstodon.xyz/@tao/1158558...

Quasi-invariance of tropical meridional surface temperature gradient in a wide range of climates - Nature Communications This study shows that the tropical meridional surface temperature gradient remains stable across a wide range of climates from extremely cold to extremely hot. This robust feature is maintained by sol...

This study shows that the tropical meridional surface #temperature gradient remains stable across a wide range of climates. This robust feature is maintained by solar radiation and tropical dynamics and provides a fundamental law to study #ClimateChange. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ice and snow warning for most of Scotland as hundreds of schools remain closed The Met Office warning covering all of Scotland apart from Shetland is from 22:00 on Wednesday until noon on Thursday.

Heavy snowfall events will occur throughout the 21st century, despite global warming ❄️⛄⛷️

Reason is non-intuitive and relates to the existence of an 'optimal' temp for heavy snow that is insensitive to warming (details: www.nature.com/articles/nat...)

#climate #snow

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Open full Professor position in beautiful Scotland…

We hope so @battalio.com!

Tropical Temperature Distributions Over a Wide Range of Climates 🌡️🥵

Using theory + sims, we explore how temperature PDFs respond to climate change over land vs ocean. Work led by Josh Duffield! @earthscista.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @ametsoc.org

journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

Starting 2026 with a bang, our paper is published! 🎉🎉🎉

In it, we explored how polar amplification depends on the underlying climate state, with implications for understanding the past and future evolution of polar climate change!

Enjoy! :)

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL118423

And speaking of future heatwaves.

New paper alert! A tour de force by my (now former) PhD student Adam Bauer.

We introduce SMACM (Soil Moisture Atmosphere Coupled Model): a simple(ish) nonlinear Hasselman model to explain the non-linear relationship between temperature and soil moisture.

This is interesting -- and has parallels in physics and climate science w.r.t. the balance between science for understanding and skillful prediction.

Comments @alisabokulich.bsky.social?

🚨Professorship at St Andrews🚨

We are recruiting a Professor in Earth Sci (incl atmos, oceans, climate) @earthscista.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social

Ideal candidate is a leading researcher with interests in impact/outreach. Deadline 23/3/26!

www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/I/...

Daily global temperature anomalies from 1940 to present, grouped by year, showing gradual global warming

2025 goes down as the ~3rd-warmest year on record (based on ERA5).

Like in 2024, every single day this past year was warmer than the average of even the most recent reference period (1991-2020).

It is likely that 2025 will be the warmest year on record for the UK.

Why does this matter?

Burning fossil fuels is warming the planet, including the UK, causing heatwaves to get hotter. For Central England this is happening 2x faster than the mean change.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Trump administration plans to break up largest federal climate research center Russ Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the National Science Foundation "will be breaking up" the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

“NCAR has played a greater role in advancing weather prediction & atmospheric modeling than perhaps any other single entity in the world,” says @weatherwest.bsky.social

Dismantling NCAR would be “like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.” KH

📣 LEAP IS HIRING! 📣

Spread the word - we're looking to add to our Data + Compute team!

▶️ APPLY TODAY: academic.careers.columbia.edu#!/174775

Linking persistence, predictability and extremes in a changing climate

Linking persistence, predictability and extremes in a changing climate

PhD project through @iapetusdtp.bsky.social with me, @drmichaelbyrne.bsky.social, Nick Dunstone (Met Office) & Chris Taylor (CEH)

iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

📢Submit to our EGU session!📢

We are organizing a session at EGU 2026 in Vienna, with a focus on climate sensitivity, radiative feedbacks and the pattern effect!

If you work on anything related to climate sensitivity, we'd love to have you! 🥳🥳🥳 Submit soon! :)

Excited to attend the inaugural Scottish Climate Conference! Organised by @annamackie.bsky.social and Alex Chaudhri, the event will take place over the next two days @earthscista.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social #climate #science

A polar vortex of confusion Meteorologists have a historical penchant for giving names to atmospheric phenomena which, in today’s world, sound rather like phrases made up to fit a dramatic headline than real scientific …

A polar vortex of confusion simonleewx.com/2025/11/20/a...

FWIW, here's the scientifically bankrupt image provided by ChatGPT when prompted by the session name... 🫣

We are convening an EGU 2026 session on the large-scale atmospheric circulation in past, present and future climates! Always a fun and vibrant session, abstract deadline is 15th Jan 💨🌎

meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/sessio...

🚨🌡️🔥🌍🌤️🚨

New paper alert in J. Climate from the Climate Dynamics Lab @earthscista.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social:

Tropical temperature distributions over a wide range of climates: theory and idealized simulations

journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

Examining deadly Rio clashes between police and notorious gang Latest updates from the BBC's specialists in fact-checking, verifying video and tackling disinformation.

Apparently Hurricane Melissa was "engineered" as part of a land-clearing plot to build smart cities in Jamaica 🤔 Here is my attempt, via BBC Verify, to douse this conspiracy nonsense with some science facts: www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9...

Global map showing surface air temperature trends for each October period from 1975 to 2024. Only land areas are shown. Red shading is shown for warmer temperature trends, and blue shading is shown for colder temperature trends. Data is from NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI NOAAGlobalTempv6.0.0. The temperature trend scale is from -0.5°C/decade to +0.5°C/decade. Most areas are warming, though there is some spatial variability.

Trends in October temperatures over land areas for the last 50 years...

Data from www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...

Excited to be visiting @universityofleeds.bsky.social today! I will discuss our research on the physics of tropical land in a changing climate, including hot-off-the-server results suggesting a drier future than climate models predict @earthandenvleeds.bsky.social @earthscista.bsky.social