Michael speaks during 100-Hour Weather & Climate Livestream
Thanks so much to all the organizers for making this possible! To learn more about the Weather & Climate Livestream (and the importance of weather and climate data and research), check out: https://wclivestream.com/. The full livestream is available here.
Lili & Michael present work at Degrees Global Forum in Cape Town
Lili and Michael travelled to Cape Town, South Africa, this May to participate in the Degrees Global Forum, which was the largest conference to date on solar radiation modification (SRM). Lili showed that whereas clouds within a shipping corridor formed more frequently and with more droplets but less liquid water before marine pollution regulations went…
Lili successfully defends Masters work on how pollution regulations changed clouds
Congratulations to Masters->PhD student Lili Boss on her successful thesis defense! Lili’s work used a statistical technique called universal kriging to look at how clouds changed over a major shipping corridor in the southeast Atlantic Ocean after the International Maritime Organization implemented strict new marine fuel pollution limits in 2020. She found that while ship…
Tony successfully defends Masters work on aerosol forcing of Atlantic Multidecadal Variability
Congratulations to Masters student Tony Freveletti on his successful thesis defense! Tony’s work used a statistical technique called Low-Frequency Component Analysis (LFCA) to look at how sea surface temperatures vary over long time periods, and whether their variations are “internal” to the climate system or “forced” by human emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Based…
Michael joins SRM360’s February “News Roundup” Podcast
Michael joined the Climate Reflections podcast from SRM360, a new media organization dedicated to explaining the science behind proposed “sunlight reflection methods” for addressing global warming, for a February “News Roundup” focusing on the retirement of the Arctic Ice Project, a research roadmap for stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening from the World Climate…
Diamond group presents at 2025 AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans
The ClaµD group at FSU was out in full force at the 2025 American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA, with PhD student Lili Boss giving her first conference talk and Masters student Tony Freveletti presenting his first poster! Lili’s talk focused on her research looking at how clouds adjust to shipping aerosol…
Paper on the importance of using a proper counterfactual for assessing climate interventions published in Communications Earth & Environment
Our new Matters Arising paper, “Informative risk analyses of radiative forcing geoengineering require proper counterfactuals”, has been published in Communications Earth & Environment in response to another article that we felt did not properly communicate their results. The root of the disagreement lies in what we consider to be the proper “counterfactual”, or situation that…
Paper testing hypotheses for how clouds might balance sunlight between Earth’s hemispheres published in GRL
Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres reflect essentially equal amounts of sunlight, but how—and whether—this “hemispheric albedo symmetry” is maintained remains a mystery. Our new paper in Geophysical Research Letters breaks down observations of reflected sunlight into components associated with the surface, clear-sky atmosphere, and different cloud types to test the leading hypotheses for this phenomenon, which…
Pants on Fire!: Michael contributes to Politifact debunking of social media “geoengineered hurricane” conspiracies
Michael spoke with Politifact the day before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida to help debunk social media conspiracy theories that pictures of unusual and visually striking cloud patterns are evidence that the government is “geoengineering” hurricanes. You can read some of the highlights below, or check out the full fact check at Politifact. Michael…
Ocean Visions releases roadmap for Arctic sea ice repair research
Ocean Visions, a “non-profit organization that catalyzes innovation at the intersection of the ocean and climate crises”, has released an interactive and evolving research roadmap into methods to slow or reverse the loss of Arctic sea ice. Michael has served on the scientific advisory board for the project since 2023, focusing on the solar radiation…
Michael participates in “Sharing Sámi Experiences: Indigenous Voices on Climate Intervention Research” side event during UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
It was very exciting to participate in the “Sharing Sámi Experiences: Indigenous Voices on Climate Intervention Research” event at the Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations! Many thanks to the Sámi Parliament of Finland, SilverLining, Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), and Operaatio Arktis for organizing and for the invitation to speak about climate…
Lili presents her research on cloud changes from shipping regulations at Florida air quality workshop
Lili had the opportunity to present her recent results at the University of Florida’s Air Quality Workshop. Lili’s research has involved investigating how different methods for calculating cloud droplet number concentration can impact the observed signal of a major shipping corridor in the Southeast Atlantic before and after changes to international regulations on sulfur content…
Jay presents their UROP project at FSU Undergraduate Research Symposium
Congrats to group member Jay Brunelli for presenting a poster about their Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) project at the FSU Undergraduate Research Symposium! Jay’s UROP research has involved investigating shifts in defined “climate zones” like tropical and polar regions under future scenarios involving different greenhouse gas emission trajectories and/or stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). Their…
Michael’s paper on detecting cloud changes from ship regulations receives 2023 ACP Paul Crutzen Publication Award
It is a huge honor to have my paper on detecting cloud changes due to recent pollution reductions driven by International Maritime Organization regulations jointly receive the 2023 ACP Paul Crutzen Publication Award. Many thanks to the selection committee and the editors, as well as my incredible colleagues and mentors throughout the years who have…
Analysis of why “cooling credits” are not a viable climate solution published in Climatic Change
Despite substantial progress in clean technology and increasing policy ambition, the world remains off track to hold warming to the Paris Agreement targets of well below 2 °C and no greater than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures. In light of this, a growing number of scientists and advocates have called for expanding research into solar…
Paper reporting the detection of large-scale cloud microphysical changes due to the IMO 2020 fuel sulfur regulations published as an ACP Letter
New regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) limiting sulfur emissions from the shipping industry are expected to have large benefits in terms of public health but may come with an undesired side effect: acceleration of global warming as the climate-cooling effects of ship pollution on marine clouds are diminished. Previous work has found a…
Diamond group @ Florida State 