Bryan Lawrence

Black and white photo of Felix Klein. He wears a dark jacket, white shirt with a high collar, and a thin black bow tie. Klein has a neat, short beard and his hair is parted on the far right. He is looking just to the right of and slightly above the photographer, with a serious and thoughtful expression on his face.

Black and white photo of Emmy Noether. She wears a white blouse with fine vertical stripes and puffy shoulders, and a light gray skirt fastened at the waist with a dark belt. There is a puffy black bow at her collar. Noether's dark hair is pulled back, and she is looking just down and to the right of the photographer. She is standing behind an ornate chair; only the back of the chair is visible in the photo.

A thread on Felix Klein, Emmy Noether, and credit where credit is due.

Felix Klein gave a lecture at the Mathematical Society of Göttingen #OTD in 1918. The title was “On Hilbert’s first note on the foundations of physics." 🧪 ⚛️ 👩‍🔬

I am heartily sick of getting invitations to important meetings with strategic implications with only two or three weeks warning. It’s like people think we are sitting with empty diaries desperate to prioritise their meeting!

NERC, UKSA I’m looking at you!

I cancelled mine for your country last year, so I too regret I can do nothing useful this time!

Pre-emptive obedience everywhere ... I am curious to know if even Hitler or Putin had a ride this easy? (Serious question, and I don't know the answer). What happened to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_of... ?

This is a very important issue. The success rate of proposals is so low that people spend all their time, writing proposals and not doing actual science. Another way science is broken.

“Scenarios are not forecasts because they are not aiming to be accurate, but to be useful”

My one foray into the epidemiological literature ended up in our paper being rejected precisely because the reviewers (and the editor) did not understand the distinction between a scenario and a forecast!

I really don't think this is a great narrative to promote. It's not as if climate scientists haven't been very vocal about the risks associated with climate change/global warming and just because it *might* be faster than some kind of best estimate doesn't imply "confused".

Ooohhhh, climate change is real when a golf course is involved but not when 8 billion lives are.

Got it.

.

Climate scientists be like..

A Triple Threat to Humanity: Climate Change, Pandemics, and Anti-Science | Skeptical Inquirer Over the past decade, many of us in the scientific community have come to appreciate the existential threat we face today—a threat unlike any we’ve witnesse ...

"A Triple Threat to Humanity: Climate Change, Pandemics, and Anti-Science" | My new article with Peter Hotez in #SkepticalInquirer: skepticalinquirer.org/2024/12/a-tr...

Infographic from Carbon180 about the difference between carbon capture and carbon removal titled "Carbon removal is not carbon capture", with the subtitle: "Though the confusion isn't farfetched. Both climate solutions clean up carbon pollution - but differ significantly in methods and impacts." On the left is a "Carbon Removal" graphic of carbon being sucked from the atmosphere, with a flag "negative emissions" and the words "'Sucks' existing CO2 from the air using land-, ocean-, and tech-based pathways, rather than preventing emissions at the source Can target legacy emissions and address climate impacts on frontline communities" On the right is a graphic for "carbon capture," which depicts a sponge on a smokestack of a factory. It has a flag that says "net-zero emissions" and the words "'Scrubs' CO, from a point source - a localized source of emissions, such as a power plant or industrial facility. Lowers or zeroes out the footprints of traditional, carbon-intensive industries"

I see that a lot of people still need to look at this infographic about the difference between carbon removal (CDR) and carbon capture (CCS).

carbon180.org/blog/the-dif...

72% of polio cases are asymptomatic.
24% get a sore throat or fever.
1-5% headache and neck stiffness (meningitis).
0.1–0.5% paralysis.

Can you imagine the internet with a polio epidemic where >99.5% of people are totally fine?

Cartoon #1: What we're built for... A bear jumps out of a bush, a man cries "oh no, a bear!" Cartoon #2: What we face now... A graph jumps out of a bush, a bored man says "oh, a graph."

The psychological challenge of climate change - our brains are hard-wired to respond to immediate threats, not a slow-motion disaster happening at a global scale (and that's not even considering the tsunami of misinformation hitting us every day).

This one wins

Screenshot of the He Pou A Rangi Climate Change Commission's vacancies web page. "Work with us. Be part of a game-changing organisation."

Come work at He Pou A Rangi, New Zealand's Climate Change Commission, as General Manager, Evidence and Advice. This leadership role will steer the Commission's multi-year work programme providing independent advice and monitoring of climate action.

centralagenciesjobs.cass.govt.nz/jobdetails/a...

Global food production at increased risk from excess salt in soil, UN report warns Scientists say climate crisis and poor agricultural practices to blame with serious implications for crop yields

“Farmers are driven to poor practice by the pressure to increase short-term yields.”

Add soil salinity to the long list of reasons why our food system is teetering on collapse.

Building this system around shareholder profit, rather than feeding people, may well be humanity’s greatest mistake.

This is the presentation video of ESM2025 EU research project on Earth system model development.ESM2025 is a European research project on Earth System modell... ESM2025 EU research project

Anyone interested in #climatepolicy out there?

Take 2 min to watch/read below how we're building the next generation of #EarthSystemModels and Integrated Assessment Models tailored to inform mitigation strategies in support of achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.👇https://bit.ly/ESM2025video

Screenshot of the launch sep page which states: The Australian Academy of Science and the National Committee for Earth System Science launched the Decadal Plan for Australian Earth System Science on Monday 25 November 2025.

Kudos to Australia for having an Earth System Science plan … which is in part about prediction, which is good, since they seem to have launched it next year

(Sorry, the alt text is truncated, but suffice to say there is a long list of stuff which is all very nice, but doesn’t fit my definition of sustainability.). Reinforces my already low impression of the value of these things!

Indicator,Weight EE1 - Academic Reputation in Earth & Environment,10% EE2 - Alumni Impact for Environmental Sustainability - Public and Third Sector,4% EE3 - Climate Science and/or Sustainability Courses,3% ER1 - Research Impact on SDGs for Sustainable Research,9% ER2 - Sustainable Research National Statistics,1% ER3 - Research Center with an Environmental Sustainability Focus,2% ER4 - Policy Citations (Environmental),1% ES1 - Alumni Impact for Innovation,5% ES2 - Member of an officially recognised sustainable group,1% ES3 - Climate change commitment (staff perception),2% ES4 - Publicly available strategy or policy on sustainable procurement and investment,1% ES5 - Student Society focused on Environmental Sustainability,1% ES6 - Net Zero Commitment,1% ES7 - Emissions Efficiency,1% ES8 - Renewables Generated Onsite,1% ES9 - Progress Towards Target,1% ES10 - Policy on Climate Strategy,1% EO1 - Employer Reputation,3% EO2 - Research Impact on SDGs for Employment and Opportunities,4% EO4 - Employment and Opportunities National Statistics,1% EO5 - Partnerships with Industry,2% EO6 - Skills Satisfaction ,1% EQ1 - Research Impact on SDG's for Equality,4% EQ2 - Student Gender Ratio,1% EQ3 - Faculty Gender Ratio,1% EQ4 - Women in Leadership Ratio,1% "EQ5 - Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy",1% EQ6 - Academic Equality (Staff View),2% EQ7 - Disability Support,1% EQ8 - Equality National Statistics,1% HW1 - Research Impact of SDGs for Health and Wellbeing ,3% HW2 - Health Provision on Campus,1% HW3 - Health and Wellbeing National Statistics,1% IE1 - Research Impact on SDGs for Education,3% IE2 - Academic Reputation for Impact of Education,1% IE3 - Alumni Impact for Education,1% IE4 - Academic Freedom Index,1% IE5 - Impact of Education National Statistics,1% KE1 - Knowledge Exchange: Progress / Dissemination,6% KE2 - Outreach and Community Engagement,1% KE3 - Staff perception,2% KE4 - Policy Citations (Social),1% GG1 - Ethics Cultu…

Another set of bogus university rankings came out today (I think). They have sustainability ratings. Great, I think. Then I look at them, and I go, “What? Huh?” Then I look up the weightings. Their definition of sustainable is not mine!

Then of course there’s are DSLs!

I’m not sure that’s true! Some vendors are hand in glove with some modelling groups trying to address this sort of thing.

A four panel meme about the PR around artificial intelligence. In the top left panel, a man looks at a crack in a wall. The crack is labeled "statistics". In the next (top right) panel, the man is shown hanging a picture frame around the crack. In the next (bottom left) panel, the man is shown standing next to the 'framed' crack, which is now labeled "Machine Learning". In the final (bottom right) panel, the man stands next to the framed crack but now a huge audience has gathered. The crack is now labeled "Artificial intelligence". This is a modified version of a comic from https://www.instagram.com/sandserifcomics/

"it's an older meme, sir, but it checks out..."

A shameless plug for my study with a similar recommendation. Considering the full ensemble spread is important for sub-selecting models for dynamical downscaling. Climate sensitivity-based selection doesn't necessarily work well (CMIP5-based, so pre hot-model). journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

You just don’t remember! It was a requirement before you got your first cows milk!

Okay. Someone has a sense of humor and has definitely heard him speak

A Valencia street filled with crumpled and piled cars left behind after the record-breaking flooding.

Don’t forget Valencia, Spain.

Don’t forget those who insisted that actions needed to avoid the #ClimateCrisis were “too expensive.”

Don’t forget all the record-breaking, historic or “100 year” events we’ve seen lately.

They’re not the “new normal.

It’s going to keep getting exponentially worse.

There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization”.) From ‘dendro’, the ancient Greek root for tree.

John, wait until you find out trees aren't real eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/t...

A cloudless satellite image of the Earth, centred on the Pacific Ocean. Only ocean is visible over the entire disk except for a glimpse of Australia bottom left and a hint of North America top right with the Arctic ice cap visible at the top.

We call it Earth only because we're land dwellers. This image shows how massive the Pacific Ocean is, covering 1/3 of the Earth's surface.
This cloudless image of the Earth centered on the Pacific was produced by NOAA satellites, which took photos over eleven ten-day periods and merged them.