Clair Barnes

El Niño is everywhere in the headlines, but ultimately human-caused climate change is the key reason for the record global warmth. 📈 Curious about how these two climate stories relate? Learn more in our latest report: www.climatecentral.org/climate-matt...

He’s on Mastodon and he reacted like this

Over 50,000 estimated to have died in urban areas during Europe’s sweltering summer in 2026, with climate change responsible for two thirds, finds two new studies by @lshtm.bsky.social @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social in @nathealth.nature.com @clairbarnes.bsky.social explains the findings 🎬 👇 [1/4]

hot take, but environmental regulations are good actually

Insulating homes and investing in heat pumps would be more effective in reducing living costs, creating jobs, and boosting the economy than drilling for new oil.

From paper to proof: revealing Congo Basin warming through rescued climate archives 1 million rescued weather observations from original paper sheets allow @derrickmuheki.bsky.social et al to clearly show warming in a region of very sparse historical observations esd.copernicus.org/articles/17/...

In the vein of "public libraries could never be created today," a pitch for a calculator would get you thrown out of the boardroom. What do you mean, it just maths? Where are the ads supposed to go? How does it send usage telemetry back if it doesn't even have wifi? There isn't even a leaderboard.

THIS IS THE PART THAT MAKES ME THE MOST ANGRY!! I actually love math! (Even linear algebra lol) I love all the weird stuff we can do! I love that a MERE REFLECTION of language can feel SO REAL people fall in love?? BUT THE WORLD IS RUN BY LITERAL CARTOON VILLAINS AND I AM BROKEN AND EXPLOITED!

Day 1 of our class on the Detection and Attribution of Human Induced Changes to Extreme Weather Introduction to attribution. Detection and Attribution of trends in climatic variables. Pearl Causal Inference Extreme weather event attribution using Pearl Causal inference Extreme value statistics

A powerful El Niño is developing in the tropical Pacific and is expected to influence global temperature patterns through 2027, but not all warming is the same. Explore our latest #ClimateMatters to learn more: https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/el-nino-global-temperatures-explained

This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever

Mary Beard, Chair of the Booker Prize 2026 judging panel, on why she dislikes the phrase ‘I really love reading’. This clip is provided courtesy of the Southbank Centre, and you can watch the full Booker Prize 2026 shortlist event on their YouTube channel: https://youtube.pulse.ly/axkmrdaxr9

We gotta start referring to data centers by both their mother and father's last names, Spain style. The Microsoft-Chevron data center, the Meta-ExxonMobil data center, and so forth. Absolutely no reason just the tech bros should be taking the heat on this shit

This should be the moment people finally realise that Farage has turned them into fascists. If you’re choosing this dangerous inhumanity over the rescue work of the RNLI, you’ve lost your minds to racism and hatred.

Remember they had the science first and chose this

NEW: Climate change is influencing many of the likely drivers behind the devastating rock and ice collapse on the northern Nepalese border last month. 🧵👇(1/6)

'We missed the 1.5c target so that means it's too late to stop climate change' Ah, we missed the 'zero road deaths' target this year. What a shame. Time to take the hummer out, squeeze my eyes shut and smash the accelerator in a pedestrian zone. Come on people, let's make some sense here

Really good chicken helmet. Best chicken helmet I’ve ever seen maybe.

Imagine if the media took the words of climate scientists as seriously as it does that rando from Anthropic… Air pollution and climate change from fossil fuel use are literally killing millions of people every year, but sure, let’s focus on the idiocy that “AI is going to kill everyone in 10”.

1/ "Every fraction of a degree of warming matters." True, and a dangerous platitude. It quietly suggests warming is a smooth dial, where each tenth of a degree costs about the same as the last. It doesn't. The later ones cost far more. Here's why. 🧵

All the plastic humanity has ever produced is ~10 billion tonnes. Humans emitted ~10 billion tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere in the first three months of 2026. When we appreciate orders of magnitude, we see how intractable the CO₂ problem becomes once we dump it into the atmosphere.

Recommended read: Analysis in the Guardian looked at how “thousands of heat-related deaths in record-breaking temperatures [this summer in the UK] appeared to only intensify hosts’ climate denials” on right-wing news channels GB News and Talk TV.

This summer was the hottest on record in the UK The summer of 1976 that some folks my age keep banging on about is now only the SEVENTH hottest on record The top five hottest summers all happened since 2003 We're heating the planet by burning fossil fuels www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/new...

The science of heatwaves, health, and wildfires: Why was the summer of 2026 so hot? Listen to @clairbarnes.bsky.social and @gkonstantinoudis.bsky.social explain the science around extreme heat and climate change to the @rigb.org Science Podcast Spotify: buff.ly/7In5jqa Apple: buff.ly/Us1ppxy

We're not changing the name of Lake Ontario. Name it whatever you want at your leisure: https://gulfof.mapquest.com/lakeontario (tag us so we can see your work 🙂)

I stayed up many nights this week writing this. Not because I had a deadline. I just couldn’t stop. It’s the most personal thing I’ve written about climate, hope, my children and the lie that we still have more time. Please read or listen: thebiggestlie.wedonthavetime.org #thebiggestlie

One of the first "outrageous" claims I saw as Jason Arday's media hounding unfolded was that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days! Wow! What a thing to claim! And the newspapers all suggested there was no evidence he actually did it. Well, they clearly didn't look very hard 🙄 🧵 1/26

Unprecedented... 70 days! France has just ended yesterday the longest series above the norm (1991-2020) ever measured! 🥵 Four heat waves—and another one before that, in May… That’s what our future will look like—only worse! 😱 📈 via Nicolas Berrod

Projection has become reality 22 years ago, Christoph Schär et al. published a landmark paper in Nature explaining that the 2003 heatwave was a harbinger of things to come. The study featured an iconic figure - shown in countless lectures - illustrating how outlandish the event was at the time

Professor Jason Stanley - ex-Yale, now Toronto - is also a leading authority on fascism. He busted Nathan Cofnas back in 2020 BEFORE his appointment at Cambridge. This entire story has been reported without any meaningful expertise of the context. spectator.com/article/acad...

The difference in utility between the use of ML to tackle big data problems that would otherwise be intractable & the use of LLMs to produce pointless slop is so large they cannot both be usefully described as “AI“. The first is making real progress, the second is dragging us towards the abyss.

Presenter: [The argument was put that DEI advanced people not on merit] Woolley: "There are 975 Professors at Cambridge. How many do you think are black? Paddy O'Connell: "Its a fair question you're asking me. So I am going to say 30%" Woolley: "I tell you: less than half a per cent"

With record-breaking heatwaves, France just had both its warmest June and July on record. Systematic collection of weather data basically began in Western Europe, giving Europe the longest thermometer-based histories in the world. After more than 250 years, we have changed the climate. 🧪

You know who wasn't hounded to suicide for dodgy academic research? ANDREW FUCKING WAKEFIELD.

Earlier in the summer I presented a figure showing how a comparable weather event to the summer of 1976 would be experienced in a warmer current climate. It would be 3-4°C hotter, with London hitting 38°C. Yesterday, that is exactly what happened.

The world is on fire - if only the scientists had warned us about single use barbecues while there was still time.

Just in case it wasn't already clear... Burning fossil fuels -> more greenhouse gas pollution -> more warming -> super-charged heatwaves + enhanced drought + super-flammable conditions -> all of this. And it's only going to get worse from now on. We really do need to stop.

It'll be pretty embarrassing if the dinosaurs went out with more dignity than us. They can't say they knew about the meteor for decades, knew exactly what to do about it, had all the technology and resources to stop it but didn't so five of them could own everything

Still just speculation, but a train derailment on the hottest day of the year also makes me wonder whether heat-induced track buckling or subsidence played a role It’s a growing climate change risk to UK infrastructure I hope those injured make a full recovery www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

“We need to remember that this is as good as it gets" “It gets worse from here. Until we get to net zero, things go on getting worse” says Prof Julia King, from UK Climate Change Committee #climatecrisis www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Was talking to a journalist about the recent heat waves in Europe and the role of atmospheric circulation. They said heat waves were becoming difficult to cover because of the lack of novelty! No wonder we struggle to deal with long-term problems as a society.

Who needs a colander when you have nature's own pinhole camera, the tree?