The forests of Russia, Mongolia, Canada, Scandinavia and the US will experience unprecedented destructive heat by 2029 with staggering consequences for life on Earth.

Thread on snow ratios. The snow ratio, or snow-to-liquid ratio states how many inches of snow, when melted, yields one inch of liquid water. Ratios are usually around 10:1 or 12:1, but can vary from as little as 6:1 or as high as 30:1, or sometimes more. 1/

There's a common misunderstanding that the colder the surface temp is, the higher the snow ratio will be (fluffier snow). This is incorrect. As long is the surface temp is not close to freezing, it really doesn't matter all that much. 2/

As the surface temp gets close to or exceeds freezing, more snow is lost to melting, yielding lower ratios and heavy, wet snow. The same reasoning also applies to temps above the ground; if they exceed freezing, sleet or rain can mix with the snow, dramatically lowering ratios 3/

Much more important is the dendritic growth zone (DGZ), the layer of the atmosphere with temperatures between -12 and -18C. In this layer, snowflakes grow as dendrites, which can easily clump together into aggregates, which contain a lot of air, increasing the ratio 4/

At warmer or colder temps, the flakes grow as plates, columns, or needles, which don't clump together as well and contain less air, lowering the ratio. To make this even more complicated, there's also a dependence on atmospheric humidity. 5/

New paper: Review and Analysis of Strategies for Reducing Life Cycle GHG Emissions of Residential Buildings in Humid
Subtropical and Tropical Climates by Daniel Satola et al. 2021 - A Thread (1/9)

We reviewed more than 70 building LCA studies in climate regions common in the Global South, studying building cases from Asia, Oceania, South America and North America. We conduct detailed analyses ...
(2/9)

...based on a final sample of 36 building cases which were fit for harmonization of results. Therein, life cycle GHG emissions show a wide range of 491 to 4811 kgCO2eq/m2. To understand more: First, how structural material choice is influencing emissions...
(3/9)

...we study both embodied and life cycle GHG emission in relation to primary materials used in the building structure. This shows lowest embodied emissions with wood as structural material, and potentially low emissions from use of concrete (non-reinforced). Second,... (4/9)

...we investigate specific design strategies applied in the different cases to analyse their potential for reducing operational and/or embodied GHG emissions. Substantial embodied GHG emissions reduction can be achieved by use of local materials, ... (5/9)

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Some 70% of people, depends how you ask, accept the global emergency. Climate system destabilisation is one aspect, declining biodiversity and increasing pollution is another. I ask: what would actually *break* if humanity responded decisively? 1/

Climate: a decisive response = cap on fossil fuel extraction and planned phase out. Fewer private car journeys, less electricity. Nothing would *break*. We still live and eat. There are alternatives and we can all cut back and share more. So what are we afraid of breaking? 2/

Pollution: reducing the above helps all that, cracking down on pollution and biodiversity loss will reduce materials consumption but changing and sharing we can still live on the planet. What would break? 3/

Most pollution and resource consumption is done by rich people. Billions of poor people live and thrive so the rich can too. Nothing will *break* there? 4/

Of course, a rapid reduction in resource consumption, less of most things and enough of the essentials for everyone will *break*something. Economic growth for one thing. But if that broke, what would *break*with it? 5/

It's #FigureFriday, so let's chat about my favorite subject: color palettes 🎨 for climate science visualization! (1/12)

First, why is it important? Put simply: a beautiful figure can communicate your results more effectively than text. It can make a figure more understandable to a public audience. So it is worth it to put care into your figure design. (2/12)

First, if you're plotting up climate model data, especially anomalies, I highly recommend Cynthia Brewer's palettes on ColorBrewer. BrBG is my go-to for precip anomalies, and RdBu is a natural for temperature. (3/12)

The sequential palettes are also great if you've got data going in one direction. Here's the Brewer "blues" at work for a figure showing LGM T change. (4/12)

But what about line graphs? If you are paleoclimatologist like me, you are probably plotting a bunch of squiggly lines. For this, I suggest designing a palette for your *entire paper* ahead on time, and then plot stuff in this palette in every figure. (5/12)