Dorian J. Burnette
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djburnette.com
Dorian J. Burnette
@djburnette.com
Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Memphis | Historical reconstruction, dendroclimatology, extreme events, storm chasing

Website: http://www.djburnette.com
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Scientists: have you been the target of an online harassment campaign, doxxing, or weaponized FOIA requests? I'd like to talk to you about steps you had to take to protect your digital security for an upcoming Nature story. (You can be anonymous if necessary.)

RTs appreciated.
November 26, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
I really wish we'd stop calling them climate "skeptics" or "vaccine skeptics", if you jump off a cliff we don't call you a "gravity skeptic"
November 25, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
The @nws.noaa.gov ventures into AI weather models, with data now available for those who wish to utilize and/or assess. Others are being explored (h/t @clarkevanswx.bsky.social) as well!
Three new AI weather models have hit the NOMADS Server 👀: Welcome AIGFS, AIGEFS, and HGEFS
November 25, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Lots of people are calling out the fact that X is filled with fake MAGA influencers from far away countries, but I wanted to point out that this, not "ideological censorship," is why companies have trust & safety teams that work on stopping inauthentic behavior.
November 24, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Hear about the historic #drought going on in Tehran? Check out the thread below. Post #3 includes a link to a paper reviewing the multiple factors that force drought in the region. 🧪
Tehran is having an historic drought due to a combination of factors, including climate change.

The ocean is not helping.

1/3
November 24, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Deeply upsetting but not surprising:

“policies defunding everything from scientific research to public health have damaged the U.S.'s reputation to the point where she hears from hospitals and universities that top international talent are no longer interested in coming to America” 🧪
'Nobody wants to come': What if the U.S. can no longer attract immigrant physicians?
Immigrants make up a significant proportion of all the country's doctors. New policies are making it harder and less appealing for foreign-born physicians to come to the U.S.
www.npr.org
November 24, 2025 at 1:33 PM
No surprise to see this. This policy change on X might actually shine some light on what is likely a severe problem with "verified" bots over there.
X has changed their policy and now you can see where the accounts are based.

Here’s an “influencer from Texas”
November 21, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Every Category 4 and 5 Atlantic hurricane since 2020, all together, in one group photo.

H/t to @ferragamowx.bsky.social for the inspiration.
November 21, 2025 at 5:25 PM
It's official...a dropsonde into Hurricane #Melissa detected the strongest wind gust a dropsonde has measured to date. See link to the full statement in the 2nd post in the quoted thread below. 🧪
Hurricane Melissa produced the fastest hurricane winds to be recorded by a dropsonde, verified by reviewing data at NSF NCAR! Hurricane Melissa’s 252 mph wind gust surpassed the previous record from Typhoon Megi over the Western Pacific in 2010, where a dropsonde measured wind gusts of 248 mph.
November 19, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Science People: We at NSF are still recovering/catching up/getting our lives together. But the agency posted these FAQs about post-shutdown resumption of operations which might answer a lot of Qs for you: www.nsf.gov/resumption-o...
Resumption of Operations at NSF
Information for NSF staff and the research community regarding the agency's resumption of operations after a lapse in appropriations.
www.nsf.gov
November 18, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Exciting news! Student applications for paleoCAMP 2026 are open! Are you a graduate student working on any aspect of past climates or environments? Apply to be part of our 2-week summer school in the eastern Sierra Nevada! More details here: paleoclimate.camp/apply
Application — paleoCAMP
paleoclimate.camp
November 13, 2025 at 2:41 PM
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was 50 years ago today. Check out the post quoted below that remaps older satellite data and uses ERA5 reanalysis to look back at the #weather on that day. #history 1/2 🧪
The 50th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald: A New Perspective on an Old Storm: cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-bl...
November 11, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
I first wrote and cron’d the script that makes these @NWSSPC upper air maps in November 1998. It’s been running and making the twice-daily UA maps for the past 27 years at this URL: www.spc.noaa.gov/obswx/maps/. That’s over 138,000 maps online and it’s still going!
November 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Collaborative news curation as a service, demonstrating the value of social media based on protocols, not platforms and a “playbook for killing information voids.”
On Tuesday night, you may have noticed something a little different on Bluesky. Here's a peek behind the scenes of how the election feed came together. Endlessly grateful for this collaboration with @wnyc.org/@gothamist.com & @bsky.app!
About The Other Night...
How Graze is defining the next era of a decentralized, open social attention economy.
graze.leaflet.pub
November 6, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
“Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show.🚨🚨🚨
Meta's fraud problem: The social media giant projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, documents seen by @Reuters show reut.rs/4qJTpdH
November 6, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
This a million times. Denial never really changes, just shifts to update its language with new discoveries and new terminology. We see the same with evolution and HIV denial. Plus, people were sick of antivaxxers even in the late 1800s.
November 4, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
FWIW I have been doing data calls from the Aviation Wx Center site, and from what I can see, it looks like as of 2:30 pm CT 14 of the 58 sites listed in the NWS notice about this contract cancelation are no longer providing updated observations.
News: Another fed contract cancelation, this time by the FAA, looks to mean the loss of surface weather observations from dozens of sites, primarily in NC and MD. More: https://tinyurl.com/yp57f2ck
Another federal contract cancelation impacts weather data, with surface observations reduced in North Carolina and Maryland
Monday tropical deep dive focuses on the western Pacific
tinyurl.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Hey folks--

I've been asked to pin this link here, so here you go.

The lectures and podcast episodes for "America at 250," the lecture course that I'm teaching with David Blight and Beverly Gage are at this link.

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
America at 250: A History - YouTube
This one-time-only course examines U.S. history from 1776 to the present, in advance of the nation's semiquincentennial (or 250th birthday) in 2026. Taught j...
www.youtube.com
November 3, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
🚨The Moore Lab at UC Davis is hiring!🚨
Post-doc for a project with @adamsobel.bsky.social on the valuation of climate information for adaptation
Could be a good fit for an environmental economist or a climate scientist - flexible start date and location
Apply by Dec 1st: recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07346
Postdoctoral Scholar - Environmental Science & Policy
University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!
recruit.ucdavis.edu
November 3, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
A nearly one-week animation for Hurricane Melissa with infrared (IR) imagery on the left and its maximum wind speed (intensity) evolution on the right. The animation briefly pauses at landfall in Jamaica.

IR images extend about 600 km from the center of the storm to illustrate its shape evolution.
October 30, 2025 at 3:03 PM
"Most of these climate change impacts will be borne, most immediately and acutely, by poorer nations in the Global South--precisely those on whose behalf the memo authors are ostensibly advocating." Important 🧵 on the Gates #climate memo by @weatherwest.bsky.social. 🧪
I wanted to offer some thoughts on the Gates climate memo that has been circulating this week. While I can't directly speak for others, I can say that my own response is one of dismay & deep frustration (and that this view is shared by many climate/Earth scientists). [1/n]
October 30, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
Inspired by Brian's chart, I investigated how much time North Atlantic named storms spent at hurricane and at major hurricane strength during 1966-2025.

Blue = proportion for "hurricane time" (category 1-5).
Orange = proportion for "major hurricane time" (category 3-5).

More details in alt text!
October 30, 2025 at 4:31 PM
NOAA Hurricane Hunters going through this 👇 to collect valuable scientific data to help forecast Hurricane #Melissa. 🧪
THEY. WERE. DOING. THIS. WITHOUT. PAY.

NOAA’s hurricane hunter pilots (and Kermit The Frog hanging from the control panel) fly into Hurricane Melissa.

Extraordinary bravery, saving lives.

(🎥 Cmdr. Danielle Varwig, NOAA Corps).
October 30, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Dorian J. Burnette
THEY. WERE. DOING. THIS. WITHOUT. PAY.

NOAA’s hurricane hunter pilots (and Kermit The Frog hanging from the control panel) fly into Hurricane Melissa.

Extraordinary bravery, saving lives.

(🎥 Cmdr. Danielle Varwig, NOAA Corps).
October 30, 2025 at 2:01 PM