Simon Donner

@simondonner.bsky.social

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Climate scientist, writer, speaker, dragger of sand into the house. Works at UBC, serves on Canada's Net-Zero Advisory Body.

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For the data oriented... the water level in the Don River (for Torontonians, the gauging station is near the Brickworks) jumped more than 3 m or 10 feet in a few hours, causing the flooding of the DVP.

Great reporting on the bigger picture around Toronto's flooding from CBC's Nicole Mortillaro. The city was hit today by the double whammy of climate change + hardening of surfaces, leading to severe and rapid flooding. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

After 2nd major flooding event in 11 years, Toronto must adapt better to changing climate | CBC Newswww.cbc.ca After 11 years almost to the day, Toronto has experienced its second major flooding event, knocking out power, flooding city streets and transit stations. It's a reminder that cities need to better adapt to a changing climate.

My writing was also not designed for social media, as anyone who has copy edited my work will tell you (Simon, how did you miss that typo)?

The Toronto storm may be the second heaviest one day rainfall on record, behind a 2013 storm that caused severe flooding + damage. This is why we have to prevent and prepare for climate change. Our cities wsren't designed for the current or future climate. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Mayor addresses city as powerful storm brings flooding, major power outages to Toronto | CBC Newswww.cbc.ca A severe storm has left many of Toronto's streets flooded, including the Don Valley Parkway, and hundreds of thousands of people without power.

More stories from Kiribati, this time about coastal erosion and how people see climate change. www.instagram.com/reel/C9Qbhl_...

Simon Donner on Instagram: "We can't see greenhouse gases, but we can see the effects of climate change. A short story on causes of coastal erosion in Kiribati, a low-lying island country in the centr...www.instagram.com 0 likes, 0 comments - simondonner on July 10, 2024: "We can't see greenhouse gases, but we can see the effects of climate change. A short story on causes of coastal erosion in Kiribati, a low-lying is...

The current western heat wave is remarkable and dangerous both for the record high temperatures and for the long duration. There won't be much relief until the weekend, stressing people and the power systems needed to provide cooling.

By this, I mean, when I saw the forecast I thought, wow, if I didn't know the date and location, I'd guess it was in Celsius... 50C would be an all time record for Palm Springs.

Bad news when a forecast looks like it should be in deg Farenheit, not deg Celsius. This is for Palm Springs, California today.

Las Vegas hit 48.6 deg C today, 120 F, an all time record. For context, the Canadian all time record set during the fatal 2021 hear some was 49.6 C, over 121 F.

Only 27 deg C, so why a heat warning you might say? Climate, and climate charge, is all about what you're adapted to. For coastal Vancouver, that's 6 deg greater than the past "normal", so many homes, buildings and local environments aren't built for it.

When it comes to climate change, we need to retire, or at least put on hiatus, the term "the new normal". This is not the new normal. Normal will keep getting warmer until we stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Record shattering heart in the western US as a high pressure system stalls in place for a few days apnews.com/article/heat...

More records expected to shatter as long-running blanket of heat threatens 130 million in U.S.apnews.com Roughly 130 million people are under threat from a long-running heat wave that already has broken records with dangerously high temperatures and is expected to shatter more inot next week from the Pac...

Seems relevant that if Trump wins in November, and remains in office until the end of his term, he will become the oldest president in history, beating President Biden by a few months.

Who is most vulnerable to climate change? The answer might be surprising. One of a few videos I shot while working with folks in the Republic of Kiribati, a low-lying island country in the middle of the Pacific. www.instagram.com/reel/C9CnU9c...

Simon Donner on Instagram: "Who is most vulnerable to climate change? The answer might be surprising. This was recorded while doing a field project with my colleagues in the Republic of Kiribati, a lo...www.instagram.com 9 likes, 0 comments - simondonner on July 5, 2024: "Who is most vulnerable to climate change? The answer might be surprising. This was recorded while doing a field project with my colleagues in the Re...

Hurricanes are heat engines powered by warm ocean surface. Beryl's strength is a direct consequence of that extreme warmth in the Atlantic Ocean. It is also giving me night sweats... we did an analysis almost 20 years ago that warned climate change is making this exact type of event more common 🧵

Yes, that's my point, regardless of Biden's health, the very structure of such a debate doesn't work because the two sides follow different rules and norms. That's why I won't debate climate denialists - it is a bad way to evaluate their arguments, allows rhetoric to trump data, no pun intended.

I realize there were constraints, but Biden was the one who thought debating this criminal coup-leading bag of refuse was worth doing, *and* to do so in a serious manner as if he faced a legitimate opponent. There are severe downsides in doing so, even if Biden was at his best.

While I can't defend Biden's debate performance, we can't understate the pitfalls of debating someone with no incentive to adhere to facts or decency. Reminds of why legitimate scientists usually won't debate creationists or climate denialists. The denialists play by different rules.

Looking for a summer listen? Check out Pacific Voices, to learn some Pacific Islands' perspectives on climate change, how to pronounce Kiribati, just how long local free divers can hold their breath, and more open.spotify.com/show/17Nc11J...

Pacific Voicesopen.spotify.com Listen to Pacific Voices on Spotify. We’ve all heard about low-lying islands in the Pacific threatened by rising seas. What is it like to really live there? How are people responding to climate chan...

Oh Canada, you warmed by 2 degrees True human cause, not the sun's command...

Oh Canada, you have warmed by roughly 2 - 2.5 degrees Celsius since 1867.

Beryl is a very powerful hurricane for late June, way before the height of the season. Already Category 4, with winds up to 130 mph.

Appreciate this sober response to the debate from historian Heather Cox Richardson. Perhaps we should not overreact to appearances, unfortunately I worry that nuance is lost in today's information ecosystem, and appearance is mostly all people notice. open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

June 27, 2024open.substack.com Tonight was the first debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and by far the most striking thing about the debate was the overwhelming focus am...

There's a difference between being able to do the job and being able to tell the story. There are a lot of brilliant scientists that are poorly suited to public communication. Unfortunately, the US President has to be able to do both, and that's the problem Biden faced in the debate.

Hello folks disturbed by the debate, you can escape to Canada and work with us on cool science problems (too soon?)

Postdoc opening! 🪸 🌊 🌡️ We're looking for someone with a marine ecology or climate science PhD to work with us at UBC on the causes and effects of marine heatwaves and other climate extremes. It is an interdisciplinary job and setting: simondonner.com/post-doctora...

Postdoc Opportunity: Climate Extremes and Coastal Ecosystems · Simon Donnersimondonner.com My research group at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada is searching for a postdoctoral researcher to participate in interdisciplinary research on ocean extreme events and their e...

Appropriate post debate beer

President Biden has done more than any president in US history to slow climate change and shift the country towards clean energy. The Democrats need someone who can tell that story, and continue the work.

Meant to say "combat the erosion of democracy." Pardon my poor wording, this debate was so disturbing, so divorced from reality, full of Trump's blatant lies, and affected by Biden's age that it is hard to adequately respond. The world needs better.

We're living at a pivotal moment in history. We need to make transformational changes to slow climate change, deal the erosion of democracy, and manage emerging technologies like AI. I don't know what the hell I just watched.

Only one candidate completely ducked the questions about climate change, arguably the greatest challenge of the century.

The world has warmed by over 1 degree C since the candidates were born.