Post by benson on Feb 10, 2017 14:16:04 GMT
I often sit back and watch certain things quietly. This past week has been one of those moments. An article this weekend in the British media brought up the old and oft disproven argument about the"warming pause." However, as scientists dug into this latest desperate "Hail Mary" pass, it was apparent that there was more to this latest saga. My colleagues Phil Plait at Blastr and Andrew Freedman at Mashable have written excellent pieces laying out how scientists debunked these latest claims. They also fill in other pieces to this rather odd story. This latest drama just highlights the level of innuendo and confirmation bias that still can rear its head in the climate discussion. However, my focus herein is different. This week I saw three opportunities that I wanted to share with the broader public that can actually help climate scientists rather than continually distracting them.
I was inspired to write this by my colleague Ed Hawkins. He is an associate professor at the University of Reading and a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment. Candidly, Professor Hawkins is one of the best and most engaging "follows" on social media for sound climate information and visualizations. He made me aware of some excellent opportunities for you to assist the world's climate scientists.
OldWeather.org. This site allows you to join thousands of citizen scientists that are trying to rescue historical weather observations. Specifically, the website says its goal is to,Marshall Shepherd ,
help scientists recover Arctic and worldwide weather observations recorded in ship's logs since the mid-19th century.
The overarching purpose is to provide historical data to fill gaps in the climate record and help refine climate model projections for the future. You can literally participate by transcribing ships' logs to extract knowledge on past climate conditions. An Australian effort called Weather Detective has a similar goal.
ClimatePrediction.net. This effort allows you to convert your own personal computer into a climate simulator to assist scientists. The website specifies,
We run climate models on people’s home computers to help answer questions about how climate change is affecting our world, now and in the future....You can help discover how the climate could look by running our free software on your computer. The data generated is sent back to us and incorporated into the climateprediction.net projects.
Their model simulations simulate temperature, rainfall and the probability of extreme weather for the next century.
Data.rescue@home. This project allows volunteers to help digitize historical weather data from around the globe. The data becomes freely available to the public. According to the site,
Two projects are currently online: One project is dealing with German radiosonde data from the Second World War and a second project contains meteorological station data from Tulagi (Solomon Islands) for the first half of the 20th century.
Climate science is very complex, and I often see the misguided assumption that "anyone" can magically do climate modeling, multivariate statistics, time series analysis or atmospheric physics. Climate scientists spend decades honing these skills in graduate school and in their profession (just as you do with yours). Climate science is far more than downloading some data and plotting it in a spreadsheet. However, these are some really neat opportunities for the engaged public to participate in the scientific process. If ideas are more your thing, also check out the Climate CoLab, a project of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. They are seeking ideas on what to do about climate change.
www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2017/02/07/3-ways-you-can-help-the-worlds-climate-scientists-right-now/#5d4e27855768
I was inspired to write this by my colleague Ed Hawkins. He is an associate professor at the University of Reading and a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment. Candidly, Professor Hawkins is one of the best and most engaging "follows" on social media for sound climate information and visualizations. He made me aware of some excellent opportunities for you to assist the world's climate scientists.
OldWeather.org. This site allows you to join thousands of citizen scientists that are trying to rescue historical weather observations. Specifically, the website says its goal is to,Marshall Shepherd ,
help scientists recover Arctic and worldwide weather observations recorded in ship's logs since the mid-19th century.
The overarching purpose is to provide historical data to fill gaps in the climate record and help refine climate model projections for the future. You can literally participate by transcribing ships' logs to extract knowledge on past climate conditions. An Australian effort called Weather Detective has a similar goal.
ClimatePrediction.net. This effort allows you to convert your own personal computer into a climate simulator to assist scientists. The website specifies,
We run climate models on people’s home computers to help answer questions about how climate change is affecting our world, now and in the future....You can help discover how the climate could look by running our free software on your computer. The data generated is sent back to us and incorporated into the climateprediction.net projects.
Their model simulations simulate temperature, rainfall and the probability of extreme weather for the next century.
Data.rescue@home. This project allows volunteers to help digitize historical weather data from around the globe. The data becomes freely available to the public. According to the site,
Two projects are currently online: One project is dealing with German radiosonde data from the Second World War and a second project contains meteorological station data from Tulagi (Solomon Islands) for the first half of the 20th century.
Climate science is very complex, and I often see the misguided assumption that "anyone" can magically do climate modeling, multivariate statistics, time series analysis or atmospheric physics. Climate scientists spend decades honing these skills in graduate school and in their profession (just as you do with yours). Climate science is far more than downloading some data and plotting it in a spreadsheet. However, these are some really neat opportunities for the engaged public to participate in the scientific process. If ideas are more your thing, also check out the Climate CoLab, a project of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. They are seeking ideas on what to do about climate change.
www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2017/02/07/3-ways-you-can-help-the-worlds-climate-scientists-right-now/#5d4e27855768