Joe Shannon

This looks exciting! Monitoring ecosystem change and attributing the impacts to planned (like forest management) and unplanned disturbances (like fire & drought) has become the primary focus of our team at work.

The latest from YouGov (n ~ 7k) gives me some methodological concerns. They allowed people to rate their pun making as "outstanding" but, statistically, most are sitting indoors at the time

today.yougov.com/topics/socie...

Figure of Western U.S. snow cover area from 2001 to 2026 illustrates a staggering decline in current coverage compared to historical norms. While the historical data for mid-January typically clusters between 400,000 and 600,000 square miles, the line for 2026 sits in unprecedented territory at the very bottom of the graph. On January 15, 2026, the snow cover area plummeted to a record low of 142,700 square miles—less than one-third of the median and the lowest point in the entire 25-year satellite record. This visual gap emphasizes a severe "snow drought," with the 2026 data point trailing significantly behind even the previous record lows, highlighting an extreme and alarming anomaly in winter precipitation.

The western U.S. faces its lowest snowpack on record despite average or above-average rainfall. Warmer temperatures mean more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, and will worsen droughts in areas like the Pacific Northwest and the Colorado River Basin.

science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...

“Children were in the crowd screaming.”

IMPEACH KRISTI NOEM.

We don’t need reforms for ICE. We need to abolish it, impeach its appointed leaders, and prosecute its criminal members

They don’t need reforms and more funding for body cameras. They need to be abolished, leaders impeached, and criminals prosecuted.

Reminder: All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.

I have spent my entire adult life being lectured by Republican politicians and conservative legal movement types about how important it is to preserve the sacred constitutional right to self-defense of *specifically this person* and then secret police murdered him in the street

STOP ASKING *THE PUBLIC* TO REMAIN CALM. You're talking to the wrong people. Demand that ICE and CBP stop murdering residents and then demand that they leave the city immediately.

From a friend in Minneapolis, just now:

U.S. all-time records summary, past 365 days

High max: 50
High min: 135
Low max: 13
Low min: 13

Stations have at least a 30-year period of record.

www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/data...

Adding Rhode Island in for more New England states:

Map from USDA NRCS showing current snow water monitoring sites with record or near-record low values. There are numerous such locations on the map as of Jan 18, including at least one in each Western U.S. state.

Remarkably, at least one observing site in every single Western U.S. state is currently reporting *record low* snowpack for this mid-winter date. In some states, esp. UT and CO, *most* sites are either record low or second lowest on record. More during Wednesday's livestream.

This infographic from the World Economic Forum shows global risks ranked by severity over two time periods: 2-year (short term) and 10-year (long term). The title reads "Global risks ranked by severity" with the WEF logo in the top right corner. The chart is divided into two columns, with risks color-coded into four categories: Environmental (green), Geopolitical (orange), Societal (red), and Technological (purple). In the short term (2 years), the top risks are: Geoeconomic confrontation Misinformation and disinformation Societal polarization Extreme weather events State-based armed conflict In the long term (10 years), the ranking shows: Extreme weather events Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse Critical change to Earth systems Misinformation and disinformation Adverse outcomes of AI technologies Both columns continue to rank risks through position 10, with environmental concerns featuring more prominently in the long-term outlook. The source is cited as "World Economic Forum Global Risks Perception Survey 2025-2026."

New World Economic Forum Global Risks data provides a stark warning: While short-term crises dominate headlines, "Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse" jumps to the 2nd highest risk over the 10-year horizon.

The long term is sooner than we think. Science-based policies via IPBES are crucial.🌍

I saw someone with a walker in the lane on Post Rd in Warwick after our last snow.

The fight against fascism starts locally.

We must never forget that ICE murdered Renee Nicole Good in broad daylight. We cannot grow numb to the terror and the violence ICE is spreading to our immigrant community. #AbolishICE

Minneapolis schools cancel classes after Border Patrol clash disrupts dismissal at Roosevelt Minneapolis schools closed for the week citing safety concerns after an encounter involving armed Border Patrol agents near Roosevelt High School.

the same people enacting anti-trans laws to “protect children” are forcing schools to cancel classes because they’re deploying chemical munitions and pseudo military tactics at public schools

Comparing Flood Inundation Map Features and Diagnosing Decision Support Design Challenges Using visualisation typologies, we developed a diagnostic evaluation method for eight user-controlled ensemble FIM visualisations. Key design challenges include unclear messaging, non-accessible and ...

New paper! Real-time flood inundation mapping (FIM) services are an incredibly valuable tool for emergency management and affected communities. But do their visualizations help users quickly and accurately interpret information to make decisions? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

I’m not going to make it to AGU this year. Made it to AFE in NOLA this week instead. I found this monument on the shores of the Mississippi River there.

One Small Step For A Moss, One Giant Leap For Mosskind | Defector Imagine that you are moss. (Thank you for subscribing to Defector, moss!) You are one of the most ancient types of land plants—older than flowers, older than grass, older than trees, older even than…

They shot moss into space, stuck it on the outside of the International Space Station for nine months, and then brought it back down to Earth to see how it was doing. It was basically fine! defector.com/one-small-st...

I’m really surprised this isn’t bigger news. Just under 10 million people live in Tehran. Where can they go? Where else in Iran will have enough water? This will undoubtedly strain the country’s and the region’s politics, finances and governance capacity.

This is what climate change looks like. What used to be snow is now rain, and when the rain falls it's heavier so more goes to runoff.

The result is drier conditions, even during wet years.

Scott Stephens and I have written an editorial on what we think is necessary to select for leadership in land management agencies so they are able to manage our public lands during rapid change. @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

this question being led by a private firm (and potential privatization of rollout) is a worst case scenario if you ask me

Identifying that variability across the landscape is one of the most exciting parts of the approach. Those results will enable place-based management recommendations.

That’s something we’re working to figure out now! This study focused on one treatment type to show the benefits and prove out the approach. Next step is to see which treatments preserve forest stability/growth & increase water use efficiency. We expect the answer to change across the landscape.

Even without something like synthetic lidar this approach might be one path to parse out differences between records and on-the-ground implementation. With multiple ecologically-relevant metrics over the same treatment it should be possible to do some differentiation

Authoritarians thrive on your silence — be loud — for America.

Really proud to have been a part of this team! @sophielgilbert.bsky.social’s got a great thread of what we found when looking at how fuels treatments affect carbon storage over time. The results show that not treating forests doesn’t mean “nothing happens”. Fire & drought still impact the landscape.