BlueSkiesResearch.org.uk: TANSTAAFL

Otherwise known as, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. At least, there isn't any longer in the Climate Division at NCAR.

 

It feels like a long time ago that we last dropped in to give seminars at NCAR. Well, perhaps that's not so surprising as it was during our previous careers :-) The origin of our current trip was actually jules being invited to NY for a workshop on monsoons and the ITCZ which she played a modest role in organising (from the paleo end of things). She also managed to drop in on GISS in the same week, and we decided that we ought to also fit in a holiday trip to Boulder within the same carbon footprint. Jules shoehorned dropped this into conversation with Bette several months ago who arranged for us to visit on Tuesday to give a seminar at NCAR, which is available on the web (my part and jules) for those who wish they were there. I rambled rather incoherently about independence in the context of climate model ensembles and constraints on climate sensitivity, and jules presented some hot new results based on simulations of the mid-Pliocene. Both ideas are scheduled for writing up before the end of the year (now there's a hostage to fortune).

It was all rather fun and we had some interesting discussions after lunch. The only disappointment was finding that this time we had to pay for said lunch ourselves! US taxpayers will no doubt be relieved that we did not add to your burgeoning national debt, else it might well have been the taco that finally broke the camel's back. It was probably worth it for the hour of ultra-fast wifi that enabled us to set up our new apple products.

Quite by chance I also spotted that there was a workshop at NCAR this week on Thursday and Friday on the topic of “Climate Informatics” so we arranged to go to that too. I've got myself accidentally roped in to a panel discussion on the topic of “Encoding climate knowledge into climate learning”. Yes, I also had to ask what that meant :-) If you tune in to the webcast from 2-3pm local time on Friday afternoon, you can find out for yourself!

The holiday proper starts on Saturday.

[jules' pics] NY pics #2

Walking is a bit frustrating in NY. On the streets there's a crossing every few feet. It is quite right than no pedestrians obey the signals as, if they did, making progress would be impossible. In some places there is the option of a park to walk through, but the routes are quite twisty so I'm not sure much time is saved. Then there's the roads alongside the park which should be fast, as there are fewer junctions, and fewer twists, but the one I tried around central park was a bit rubbish due to the roots of the trees making the surface very uneven. With all these hazards, I was almost late for the start of the workshop!
Anyway, here's some park.

Posted with Blogsy

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 9/16/2015 11:47:00 PM

[jules' pics] NY pics

Here to learn about rain in the past present and future, but the workshop didn't start until noon yesterday, so there was time for a bit of walking about and photographing. Photos with real camera but blogging from iPad so not sure how well these will work (anyone know a good photoblogging app?!).

Posted with Blogsy

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 9/16/2015 01:15:00 PM

New York

Last week I was warned by one of my friends in Japan that New York is tiny, but I didn't really believe them. But - it's just so cute I wanna wrap it up and take it home! The people are very polite (I was shocked - more than once people stepped back and waited while I took a photo.) and friendly, and unlike San Francisco, you don't have to be always taking care not to tread on the bodies of the people with mental health problems. It's like a Toytown Tokyo, but with pedestrians who don't hold with obeying road crossing instructions or squashing up in the train.

Big Apple

 

Climate scientists may not be fully accepting if you bring the wrong sort of apple to a meeting.