Philip Brohan
@brohan.org
380 followers 160 following 22 posts
Historical Climatologist. Into deep learning and data visualization.
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brohan.org
The future of scientific publishing is YouTube, Github, Medium, Substack, ...
I don't see much of that in the agenda.
Reposted by Philip Brohan
micefearboggis.bsky.social
This is a work of art.
canopyrobin.com
I may have taken PowerPoint too far... This was the slideshow from my latest talk
brohan.org
It is easy to come up with designs for ground-breaking climate models using ML.
The thing that's very hard is to come up with a ML climate model that looks and operates like an NWP model.
If we can find the courage to move on from NWP, then the future is bright indeed.
brohan.org
They only use ERA5 at all because they are doing NWP imitation. Eventually they will realise that to forecast London precip. (say) an AI model doesn’t have to bother with the whole NWP state vector.
Then we’ll start to see real improvements.
brohan.org
The really interesting result is the reduced observational requirement for DA. How far can we push that?
brohan.org
You could build a model without ERA5 - train it on satellite data, in-situ observations, or what you will. There just isn't much point.

While all the AI models use ERA5, they don't require it.
It really is a supercomputer-free forecasting system.
Reposted by Philip Brohan
thalassalib.bsky.social
I'm always looking for ways to make it faster to transcribe historical data, & structured handwritten text has been a real challenge. I just tested Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash model on some Monterey Bay temperature data from 1952. I'm pretty impressed! Not perfect, but better than a blank page. 🌊
A screenshot of two application windows open next to each other. On the left is a scanned page of handwritten ocean temperature data from March 1952, and on the right is a Google sheet with most of the data transcribed. There are missing values in places, but the digital data is very accurate.
Reposted by Philip Brohan
tim-andrews.bsky.social
Delighted to announce I have taken on a joint position between the Met Office and the University of Leeds:

Research Scientist | Met Office Hadley Centre
Associate Professor | University of Leeds

Looking forward to getting to work on this.

See news article below 👇
envleeds.bsky.social
The Leeds-Met Office Academic Partnership welcomes four new joint positions: Dr Steve Abel, Dr Tim Andrews, Dr Camilla Mathison, and Dr Lorenzo Tomassini!

They'll deliver research and impact across disciplines to tackle challenges in weather and climate.

environment.leeds.ac.uk/news/article...
Met Office Academic Partnership expands with new joint roles
The four joint Leeds-Met Office appointees will provide new leadership within the Schools of Earth and Environment (SEE), Geography and Mathematics.
environment.leeds.ac.uk
Reposted by Philip Brohan
noc.ac.uk
🔭 How accurate are historic sea surface temperatures?

NOC's Dr Elizabeth Kent MBE (@lizk40.bsky.social) gives us a rundown and explores a particularly puzzling cold feature on #NOCIntoTheBlue.

Watch, listen and subscribe NOW 🎧 linktr.ee/nocintotheblue
brohan.org
The state vector describing reality has way too many dimensions.
What else can we do?
brohan.org
I won't be following up myself (the data I'm after is almost all in tables). But I do urge you to give it a go - point your browser at aistudio.google.com upload your image and start asking. It could hardle be easier to experiment with.
Google AI Studio
Google AI Studio is the fastest way to start building with Gemini, our next generation family of multimodal generative AI models.
aistudio.google.com
brohan.org
And as so often it's not perfect, but it's very promising. Definitely worth looking into.
brohan.org
No.

But since you ask.
I've uploaded a page from "A Collection of Voyages Chiefly in the Southern Atlantick Ocean" books.google.co.uk/books?id=sGx...

And asked Gemini a couple of questions:
brohan.org
I was thinking that maybe in a couple of months there would be an upgrade to Gemini that we should experiment with.

I made insufficient allowance for 'AI time'. An update has come out today -
developers.googleblog.com/en/gemini-2-...

I don't know if it makes any difference.
Gemini 2.0: Flash, Flash-Lite and Pro
The Gemini 2.0 model family is now updated, to include the production-ready Gemini 2.0 Flash, the experimental Gemini 2.0 Pro, and Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite.
developers.googleblog.com
brohan.org
All the code is available at the link, and Gemini's free tier is enough to experiment with.

Go on - give it a try.
brohan.org
" We can say with some confidence that we are better at reading the logs than the original log-keepers were at writing them."

I think we are very close to being able to replace the 'we' with 'AIs'.
Reposted by Philip Brohan
edhawkins.org
In 2018, @blkahn.bsky.social said that the warming stripes graphic 'belongs in a damn museum', even suggesting that it was 'fit for the Museum of Modern Art' (see gizmodo.com/this-climate...).

Well...

Later this month, they will appear in the Museum of Modern Art: press.moma.org/exhibition/p...
This Climate Visualization Belongs in a Damn Museum
brohan.org
Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea

In honour of today's #ShippingForecast centenary, here's a weather map of December's #StormDarragh - made out of the associated shipping forecast.
Reposted by Philip Brohan
edhawkins.org
Congratulations to Prof. Phil Jones (UEA) for receiving an OBE for services to climatology!

Well deserved and long overdue recognition for his efforts over many decades to collate and analyse observational records of climatic changes.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/676a8b...
Reposted by Philip Brohan
edhawkins.org
And, amazing to see @lizk40.bsky.social receive an MBE for services to tracking global temperatures. Richly deserved for all her efforts over decades!