Benjamin Cook

LDEO postdocs traversing a volcanic dike on the Olomana Trail in Oahu. Credit: Brandon Shuck

📣 Postdoc opportunity alert! Join our dynamic community of Earth, environmental, and climate scientists as LDEO postdoctoral fellow. Principal criteria: scientific excellence + clear plan to investigate problems at forefront of Earth science. ➡️ Apply by Nov 7: lamont.columbia.edu/about/postdo...

If you are interested to apply for #Lecturer position in #EarthSciences 👇🏼 then please put your application in as soon as possible. The advert states that the application window may close early (I am just told about this at #coffee) 🙂
Thank you all for promoting this position.

⚠️new(-ish) paper in Journal of Climate⚠️ i evaluated CMIP6 models' Pacific decadal SST variability and teleconnections... big takeaway is that models under-simulate temporal PDO/IPO variability on decadal timescales, likely affecting precip trends in the Southwest
journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

Climate-linked escalation of societally disastrous wildfires Climate change and land mismanagement are creating increasingly fire-prone built and natural environments. However, despite worsening fire seasons, evidence is lacking globally for trends in socially ...

Published today: our new paper showing a 44-year trend of increasing global wildfire disasters (fatalities and economic losses) due to climate change-induced extreme weather. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Glaciers in California’s Sierra Nevada are likely disappearing for the first time in the Holocene The projected loss of glaciers in California’s Sierra Nevada is likely unprecedented in at least the past 30,000 years.

Very cool work (with a very sobering result) led by Andy Jones (a paleoCAMP alumnus!) in Science Advances: 'Glaciers in California’s Sierra Nevada are likely disappearing for the first time in the Holocene' www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Example of the new climate tool from Climate Central. This is showing climate change in Pennsylvania which is seeing annually a change in precipitation of 3.2 inches since 1970 and a warming of 3.2°F. Fall threats include heat, heavy rainfall, and sea level rise. This is associated with impacts like increased cooling demand, more extreme rainfall, and changes to fall foliage.

📣 Check it out! Explore the new data viz on our homepage: www.climatecentral.org

@climatecentral.org just released a new tool to explore climate impacts in U.S. cities and states - making complex data easier to understand for your community.

🚨 What’s the biggest Fall climate threat where you live?

Just to cllose out the water year, here is my final wy2025 storage graphic for the Upper Colorado, along with the previous 9 yrs worth for context. @cw3escripps.bsky.social

Explanations at
cnap.ucsd.edu/water-storag...

Disentangling climate and policy uncertainties for the Colorado River post-2026 operations - Nature Communications Planning for the Colorado River is critical to secure water and hydropower for the western US under climate change. This study highlights how different policies may reduce but not eliminate the risk of losing water and energy supply altogether.

Disentangling climate and policy uncertainties for the Colorado River post-2026 operations www.nature.com/articles/s41... 'under existing policy, both reservoirs will face substantial risks (>80% likelihood) of reaching dead pool before 2060'

Here's an interactive web simulation of the Fujiwhara effect, using @visualpde.com: lnkd.in/eaWCpKHF

When two areas of rotating fluid - like hurricanes in the atmosphere - get close enough, they can influence each other (the 'Fujiwhara effect'). Click to add your own vortices and see what they do.

Huge congratulations to Ed Cook for receiving the @agu.org Revelle Medal, which 'recognition of outstanding contributions in atmospheric sciences, atmosphere-ocean coupling, atmosphere-land coupling, biogeochemical cycles, climate or related aspects of the Earth system.'

I'm hiring! 🔽

Thanks Diego!

🏆 AGU is excited to announce the recipients of the 2025 Union Medals, Awards and Prizes; Fellows; and Section Awards and Lectures. Honorees will be recognized this December in New Orleans, LA at #AGU25.

🎖️👉 View the 2025 Honorees: buff.ly/eQSk1xJ

i just hope we'll still get a cup of ranch with a few carrot sticks in it this year

Sacrificing server stability to keep the meeting affordable! Which is why member registration for AGU 2025 is now <<checks notes>> $794 ??!!!!1!!!

Fighting climate change takes more than data — it needs wonder, love and hope An informative and highly accessible book discusses climate change, its impacts and challenges to mitigating global warming through a compelling personal account.

“Everyone should read it”: Nature reviews Human Nature
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Thank you!

Anyone know if ERA5 assimilates any satellite soil moisture observations? Finding some conflicting information online.

When extreme weather strikes, thousands turn to @weatherwest.bsky.social. 🌩️ Daniel Swain, climate scientist and prolific communicator, makes complex #science clear for the public.

Meet him in this year’s #Grist50 list: grist.org/fix/grist-50...

#Weather #Disaster #Climate #Floods #Hurricane

The influence of lateral flow on land surface fluxes in southeast Australia varies with model resolution Abstract. Land surface models (LSMs) used in climate models typically represent surface hydrology as one-dimensional vertical fluxes, neglecting the lateral movement of water within and between grids....

We just published a paper that shows including lateral flow of soil moisture matters for climate once you get down to km-scale modelling of the land surface. More and more of our work is at these scales so we need to start including processes like this. 🧪
hess.copernicus.org/articles/29/...

📢We're hiring!📢

We have a permanent Lecturer in Earth Sciences position available in @OU_EEE
@OpenUniversity

£47,389 to £56,535
Closing Date: 20 October 2025*

We are a friendly, research intensive school with supportive colleagues and great labs.

jobs.open.ac.uk/job/Lecturer...

Map showing sea surface temperature anomalies across the North Pacific Ocean Basin as of Sept. 18, 2025.

The Pacific "blob" is back, except this time it stretches across the entire North Pacific Ocean Basin. This is altering weather patterns, led to Japan's hottest summer on record, and could affect your winter weather too. Also hit hard is marine life. www.cnn.com/2025/09/19/c...

Time series of monthly Northern Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature anomalies from 1850 to August 2025 alongside multi-model expectations of the warming in this area (scenario SSP2-4.5).

The Northern Pacific Ocean is currently smashing temperature records.

And it is reaching these levels far earlier than the current generation of climate models had expected.

A short thread 🧵

📣 PRESS RELEASE

Registration for experts interested in serving as Expert Reviewers and providing scientific comments on the First Order Draft of the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities is now open!

Registration closes 30 Nov 2025.

Read more 🔗 www.ipcc.ch/2025/09/17/p...

Hot Drought of Summer 2023 in Southwestern North America agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

New paper out today in GRL: Drying of the Panama Canal in a Warming Climate (shorturl.at/TJ3aj)

Main finding: Low water levels in Gatun Lake (main reservoir for Panama Canal) become more frequent and severe in a warming climate, particularly under higher emissions pathways

We're hiring! We have an open search for an Assistant Professor in physics of the ocean and/or atmosphere in Columbia's Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Please circulate this information to good candidates, and apply yourself if you are one! Ad & link to apply: apply.interfolio.com/173819

In the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences @columbiauniversity.bsky.social, we are hiring an Assistant Professor in Atmosphere and/or Ocean Physics. No deadline stated, but review will begin soon, so please do not delay. apply.interfolio.com/173819

Sensitivity to Data Choice for Index‐Based Flood Insurance Data choice directly controls the accuracy, timeliness, and uncertainty of index-based flood insurance payouts Our state-of-the-art index activated payouts earlier and with lower uncertainty than...

New paper led by Alex Saunders (University of Arizona) shows index insurance outcomes can be sensitive to choice of metric and dataset - important insights for those using index insurance as a means to reduce vulnerability agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Screenshot of an email reading: Dear Dr. Nielsen, Congratulations on

a photo taken after i successfully defended my dissertation. i'm in the center wearing university regalia, my advisors ben cook and kate marvel are standing on either side of me. we're posed, smiling, front of a map of the world.

some personal news