Colin Seftor

🚀 🧪#NASACuts

NASA’s Unsung Workforce: Contractors

Over half of #NASA’s workforce are contractors.

Depending on the center, the proportion ranges from 50% to 70%+. Goddard—the most science-focused of all NASA centers—is at the upper end.

There are two main types of NASA contractors.
1/8

Starlink satellites orbiting Earth. https://heavens-above.com/StarLink.aspx

SpaceX is altering atmospheric chemistry. Over 525 Starlinks deorbited in the past few months. A Starlink satellite produces 30 KG of aluminum oxide vapor which erodes the ozone layer. These oxides have increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022. NOAA predicts this could heat the stratosphere 1.5°C

As NASA's budget shrinks, Europe doubles down on Earth science: 'Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation' If NASA must pull back, Europe is ready to step up — and do so with open arms.

As NASA's budget shrinks, Europe doubles down on Earth science

The area burned in the Canadian 2025 fire season has hit 5 million ha. Third active fire season in a row that combined has burned 7% of the Canadian forest. Currently we have 346 fires out of control (192 monitored out of control (OC) and 154 OC that are being actioned) so expect the number to rise.

I would say shame on them, but shame is such a foreign concept to those currently in power.

Email from Social Security Administration saying "Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors." As if it were a MAGA campaign mailer.

More from Social Security making Trump talking points.

An email that appears to have come from the real Social Security administration.

Which until now had been considered a non-partisan federal agency.

Time for another look at 'The Origins of Totalitarianism.'

The Big, Beautiful Bill assigns each American a billionaire who will live the American dream for you. You can check in on your billionaire at intervals and see how he is using your money. Maybe he's building a 19th pool. Maybe he's buying himself some formerly public land! Maybe he's taking a Supreme Court justice on a dream vacation! Maybe he is reupholstering the Statue of Liberty to hide the poem.

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

A series of pyroCb events in Alaska over the last few days have combined with high altitude windws to produce a smoke plume that stretches across Alaska, through western Canada / US, and into California / Nevada. This image shows N20 OMPS AI measurements. The length of the plume is over 4500 km.

So far the five provinces all have above average estimated emissions to date with Manitoba already setting its highest annual total, and Saskatchewan & Ontario highest total for time of year, in the 23-year dataset #CopernicusAtmosphere dataset

Total estimated emissions from Canadian #wildfires continuing to increase sharply (to 10 June) with many intense fires in BC, AB, SK, MB & ON. #CopernicusAtmosphere GFAS data based on MODIS🛰️ active fire obs ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/datasets/cam... @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social @ecmwf.int

I was expecting this to happen ever since the election; every week or so I'd check to see if it was still up. I'm surprised the site has stayed up this long. What a sad, sorry state this country is being dragged into.

Imagery using the N20 OMPS NM aerosol index shows that the smoke did go over the pole (watch the AI signal inside the circle). It's now in the easternmost part of Russia.

Kennedy Removes All C.D.C. Vaccine Panel Experts

This is on all the Senators who turned a blind eye and voted to confirm. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/h...

There’s an elephant in the room at the Royal Society – and for once, it’s not (just) Elon Musk – Physics World A conference on the future of the UK space sector makes stunningly little mention of how proposed cuts to NASA funding might affect it

On our blog, our online editor @drmlharris.bsky.social writes about the surreal experience of attending a space conference where no-one seems keen to mention the biggest threat to the sector's future: drastic proposed cuts to US science funding, including NASA. 🧪⚛️🔭 physicsworld.com/a/theres-an-...

Canada wildfires smoke turns UK skies orange Smoke from wildfires burning in central Canada was visible in the skies over the UK this weekend.

Canada wildfires smoke turns UK skies orange

#AirPollution knows no borders!

#Health #Environment
www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...

Look close at this recent satellite view and you can see the thin layer of smoke. We've got the current smoke situation, and the latest DC area forecast for mid-to-late week heat, at cwg.live

US climate scientists need all the help they can get. Including from foul-mouthed comedians! 🤡😱😱

Watch Emmy Award-Winning David Cross team up with Prof Michael Oppenheimer in the US launch of the hit series "Climate Science Translated".

#climate #arresteddevelopment #climatescience

Sun rising Tuesday through smoky #Haze over the Jefferson Memorial in #DC! @capitalweather.bsky.social @ianlivingston.bsky.social

Cuts have consequences, illustrated. As seen on TV 📺

A Giant Plume of Saharan Dust Is Headed to Florida

Wow a whole article about aerosols www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/w...

Here's the aerosol index image from the OMPS nadir mapper sensor onboard the NOAA 21 satellite. Note the definition of the AI is different from what TROPOMI (the instrument on Sentinel 5P) uses. I "pulled out" a bit so you can see the plume that spans across the Atlantic and over Europe.

An update from my previous posting, surface photometer confirm the presence of very thick smoke with values similar to thick citrus cloud. This why it feels like "the sun is not toasting much today"

Yes, this is very much worth reading.

A summary of engineering gap between Musk's longtime promises to land people on Mars *by next year*, and real-world explosive results.

Also, why clunky old-tech NASA/Apollo had a much better record.

#CopernicusAtmosphere aerosol alerts (indicating total aerosol optical depth > 2003-2018 climatological values) showing multiple smoke plumes from Canada & E Russia #wildfires around high northern latitudes and the #Arctic on 1 June aerosol-alerts.atmosphere.copernicus.eu?autoplay=tru...

Pyrocumulonimbus outbreak in Alberta | Bad Weather Kyle A series of firestorms raged across northern Alberta on the evening of 28 May.

What's a pyrocumulonimbus?

There was an outbreak of them across northern Alberta on Thursday evening.

Check it out 👇

badweatherkyle.com/pyrocumuloni...

Don't forget about the huge earth science cuts proposed for NASA. They literally created the field in the 60's and 70's.

🌊 NOAA and NSF budget requests would amount to decimation of earth, ocean and atmospheric science in the US.

Dozens of active and planned NASA spacecraft killed in Trump budget request Proposal would end nearly all new major science missions

Breaking from @science.org: The Trump administration wants to kill off a host of active and healthy NASA climate and planetary spacecraft. It would be a "leaner, more focused" agency, they say -- and one far less capable of studying the Earth and exploring space.

Table showing FY26 budget numbers for NOAA from the Trump Administration.

Trump's Budget is out. For NOAA, it's exactly what the previous passback document showed.
Trump administration eliminations NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research in its ongoing fight against science and reality.

www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

The Canadian fire situation intensified over the last 2 days, resulting in a number of pyroCb events. This image shows the N21 OMPS AI overlayed on N21 VIIRS RGB imagery for 28/29 May. Smoke stretches across a large portion of the country, well into the Atlantic, and is now moving into the US.