Andrew Dessler
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andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler
@andrewdessler.com
26K followers 1.3K following 9.4K posts

Prof of Atmospheric Sciences & climate scientist @ Texas A&M; AGU and AAAS Fellow; Native Texan; find out what I think at https://www.theclimatebrink.com/

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Environmental science 46%
Geology 17%
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andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · Nov 2
profile picture pupdate: strong consensus for: dog, but more professional.

Introducing my new profile pic:

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 1h
She makes decisions under pressure and gets the job done.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 1h
Erica is the best character in Stranger Things.

Prove me wrong.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 2h
here it is: youtu.be/PWCSHU4f7n4
Fred Singer presentation to GEOS 444 during Spring 2013
YouTube video by dessler2
youtu.be

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 2h
Actual temperature record:

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 2h
found this email from Fred Singer (well known climate denialist) from 2016. he had spoken to my class and they wanted to ask a few follow up questions. like almost all of this statements, these answers did not age well.
At 01:19 PM 3/26/2016, you wrote: Hi Fred. My class is interested in your thoughts about the recent temperatures. As you know, the various data sets show record temperatures. Answer: NOT SURE IT WILL SURPASS THE 1998 SUPER-EL-NINO Do you acknowledge that the climate is now warming? Answer: YES - BUT LIKELY ONLY FOR 1-2 YRS Are you still convinced that cooling is the greatest threat? Answer: YES

Reposted by A. E. Dessler, Daxton R. Stewart

normcharlatan.bsky.social
Norm Charlatan @normcharlatan.bsky.social · 3h
At least Texas A&M can take solace knowing the academic side of its institution is being run well.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Richard S.J. Tol, Jonathan A. Eisen , and 39 more

publius24.bsky.social
John Q. Public @publius24.bsky.social · 1d
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 1d
On The Climate Brink: Cook like a physicist
www.theclimatebrink.com/p/cook-like-...
Cook like a physicist
Assume your turkey is a sphere of water ...
www.theclimatebrink.com

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 1d
here're last year's numbers

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 1d
people googling "how to cook a turkey"
trends.google.com/trends/explo...

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 2d
Just watched the reunion. My god, what a disappointment.
andrewdessler.com Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
Watching Love Is Blind France. This is really emphasizing how awful the US contestants are.
#loveisblind

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 2d
I watched all four seasons over the last few weeks. As I watched it, I was amazed at how much of the plot of earlier seasons I'd forgotten. Not that surprising given that S4 was 3 years ago and S1 was nearly 10 years ago.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 2d
Even at $2.97 this is a bad deal. This is exactly the kind of snack where the first bite tastes interesting, but by the forth one it’s absolutely disgusting. #CostcoFail

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 2d
This is a really great article. Extremely well written.
www.theringer.com/2025/11/25/n...
The Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr. Affair Is Messier Than We Ever Could Have Imagined
Inside the most important, and also least important, story of our time
www.theringer.com

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 3d
After the latest LiB in Denver, it was clear that they were drawing contestants from a pool that was a few sigma from the mean.

The French show certainly has more normal people, although the show does attract a certain narcissist personality type.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 3d
"I'm not Enron"

me explaining to my wife how I balanced the checkbook

Reposted by Joe R. Feagin, A. E. Dessler, Richard Price , and 3 more

bgrueskin.bsky.social
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 3d
At this point, the Washpost edit page is just trolling its readers.

This is today's actual house editorial.
Opinion Editorial Board Thankful for paper towels Holiday travelers deserve better than inadequate and unsanitary hand dryers.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
Once they got to Tangiers, things are not looking so great.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
Watching Love Is Blind France. This is really emphasizing how awful the US contestants are.
#loveisblind

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
The response from @bratwebb.bsky.social looks like what you get when you select 'auto' instead of a particular model. Not sure what this means since 'auto' and '4.1' give somewhat different answers.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
Interesting, here's what Grok4.1 gave me. It does seem to be a "work in progress" ...
x.com/i/grok/share...
The question of whether climate change is an "urgent threat" depends on what you mean by "urgent" and "threat," but let's look at the evidence as objectively as possible.Current Scientific ConsensusThe IPCC (2021–2023 reports), NASA, NOAA, and virtually every national academy of science agree that human activities (primarily CO₂ and methane emissions) are the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century. Global average temperature is already ~1.1–1.3 °C above pre-industrial levels (1850–1900 baseline) as of 2024–2025. Warming is happening faster than at any time in at least the past 2,000 years, and the rate has accelerated in the last few decades. What Makes It "Urgent"?Committed warming and tipping points Even if all emissions stopped today, we are already locked into roughly another 0.5–1 °C of warming over the coming decades because of heat already absorbed by the oceans and the long lifetime of CO₂ already in the atmosphere. Several potential tipping elements (West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, Amazon dieback, permafrost thaw, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation slowdown) become considerably more likely between 1.5 °C and 2.5 °C. Crossing some of these could trigger irreversible changes on century-to-millennium timescales. Near-term risks that are already escalating Extreme heat events that were once-in-50-year events are now ~5 times more likely at 1.2 °C and become ~14 times more likely at 2 °C (IPCC AR6). Heavy rainfall events are intensifying ~7 % per degree of warming (Clausius-Clapeyron relation). Sea-level rise: we are already committed to ~0.5–1 m by 2100 even under aggressive mitigation; unmitigated scenarios give 1–2 m or more by 2100 and many meters over centuries. Low-lying nations and coastal cities are already planning multi-trillion-dollar defenses or managed retreat. 3. Time window for limiting warming To have a 50 % chance of staying below 2 °C, the remaining carbon budget (from 2020 onward) was roughly 1,150 Gt CO₂ (IPCC SR1.5). We emit ~42 Gt CO₂e per year now, so that budget lasts ~25–30 years at current rates. For 1.5 °C (66 % chance), the budget was only ~400 Gt CO₂, which gives roughly a decade at current emission rates. Every year of delay makes the required rate of decarbonization steeper and more expensive. Counter-Arguments and CaveatsSome impacts (e.g., hurricane frequency) remain debated; intensity and rainfall are increasing, but detection of frequency changes is harder. Cold-weather deaths currently exceed heat-related deaths globally, and mild warming can reduce the former, though heat-related deaths are rising fast and are projected to dominate at higher warming levels. Economic models vary widely: Nordhaus/DICE-type models suggest gradual optimal pathways; others (e.g., using fat-tailed risks or higher damage functions) argue for much more aggressive near-term action. Adaptation is reducing vulnerability in many places (fewer deaths from natural disasters despite population growth), but there are hard limits (e.g., small island states, coral reefs, permafrost regions). Bottom LineYes, climate change meets most reasonable definitions of an “urgent threat”:The physical risks are already material and growing nonlinearly. The remaining time to avoid the worst outcomes (especially >2 °C) is measured in decades, not centuries. The longer we delay deep emissions cuts, the more disruptive and costly the eventual transition becomes—both for mitigation and adaptation. Whether that urgency justifies any specific policy (carbon tax level, nuclear expansion pace, geoengineering research, etc.) is where legitimate debate lies. But the underlying physical trajectory and tightening time constraint are not seriously contested in the current peer-reviewed literature.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
Worth remembering: Grok2 vs. Grok3's answer to the question "is climate change an urgent threat?" suggests manipulation by Musk

bsky.app/profile/andr...
andrewdessler.com Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · Feb 20
grok 2 vs grok 3
Grok 2's conclusion: Climate change is not a distant threat—it is happening now, and its impacts are intensifying. It threatens human health, economies, ecosystems, and global stability. While the challenge is immense, solutions exist, and immediate action can still make a difference. Governments, businesses, and individuals must act urgently to reduce emissions, adapt to changes, and build a sustainable future. The cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of action, and the time to act is now. conclusion: So, urgent threat? If you buy the consensus, yes-time's ticking, and impacts are already here. If you're skeptical, it's more of a manageable shift we're overreacting to. Data's there on both sides; it's about what risks you're willing to bet on. What do you think?

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
www.theclimatebrink.com/p/consensus-...
Consensus machines
Will the AI future inadvertently recenter expertise?
www.theclimatebrink.com

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
LLMs function as "consensus machines." Rather than presenting diverse viewpoints like traditional search engines, LLMs are designed to provide a single "best" answer by drawing from their training data, collapsing plausible responses into consensus-aligned answers.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 4d
On The Climate Brink, @hausfath.bsky.social has a great post about LLMs: They might inadvertently help recenter scientific expertise in public discourse, despite recent concerns about ideological manipulation.

Reposted by A. E. Dessler, Jussi T. Eronen

hausfath.bsky.social
Zeke Hausfather @hausfath.bsky.social · 4d
LLMs are fast becoming a major source of information.

In a new piece over at The Climate Brink, I argue that LLMs are fundamentally consensus machines, and could help defragment our information ecosystem – at least if their creators do not put thumbs on the digital scale.
Consensus machines
Will the AI future inadvertently recenter expertise?
www.theclimatebrink.com

Reposted by A. E. Dessler

chuckwendig.bsky.social
Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social · 4d
A reminder that gas-powered leafblowers are nightmare devices that are bad for you, bad for your lawn, and very bad for the environment. They fume and scream and kill the world all so you can messily and ineffectively move leaves around, leaves which are generally supposed to stay where they fell.

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 5d
Nice article in @politico.com about a for-profit geoengineering company. They are betting that we'll fail to keep the climate below dangerous levels and they'll get rich. That might not be a bad bet.
www.politico.com/news/magazin...
The Strange and Totally Real Plan to Blot Out the Sun and Reverse Global Warming
A 25-person startup is developing technology to block the sun and turn down the planet’s thermostat. The stakes are huge — and the company and its critics say regulations need to catch up.
www.politico.com

andrewdessler.com
Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · 6d
If you liked James Balog's movie, Chasing Ice, here is a follow-up (short) film, Chasing Time.

www.pbs.org/pov/films/ch...
Chasing Time - POV
Photographer James Balog brings the 15-year Extreme Ice Survey project to a close.
www.pbs.org