Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · 1d

It's great to see the big crowd here in Boulder for the UCAR Members Meeting. I will be at the CISL booth during the reception this evening, so please come say hi and learn more about all the AI work we're doing at NSF NCAR.

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

profserious @profserious.bsky.social · 3d

Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...

10 AI Prompts for Academics

making those hard jobs a little easier ...

profserious.substack.com

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · 8d

Environment Canada and ECMWF have been testing this by using the AI model to nudge the larger scale features of the physics models. It does provide similar track performance to the AI model with better intensity.

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Steve Nesbitt @70dbz.bsky.social · 8d

Whistleblower report on NASA funding from the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation www.commerce.senate.gov/services/fil...

www.commerce.senate.gov

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · 10d

It should be in the more raw netcdf files on Google cloud either in cube sphere or lat lon grid format.

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Aaron Hill @draaronhill.bsky.social · 21d

Extremely excited to announce that I am the incoming chair for the AMS AI STAC Committee! Looking forward to leading our committee alongside @zhonghuazheng.bsky.social and @tropmetpie.bsky.social

We are seeking new members to join the AI STAC, including both regular and student members.

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Dr. Robin Tanamachi 🌪️ @tornatrix.bsky.social · 24d

I am so excited to announce that one of the radar meteorology courses that I developed with @comet-meted.bsky.social is now available! "Dual-Polarization Fundamentals" picks up where "Weather Radar Fundamentals" left off! learn.meted.ucar.edu#/online-cour... (Register on learn.meted.ucar.edu first.)

Screenshot of the lesson, showing a radar dish overlaid with text:
"Online Course
Dual-Polarization Fundamentals
1h 30m - 2h
Description
Once an experimental type of weather radar, dual-polarized (“dual-pol”) weather radar is now deployed across the United States and many parts of the world. This lesson will introduce the basic principles of dual-pol weather radar. By the end of this lesson, learners will understand physical meanings of several commonly used polarimetric radar variables, including differential reflectivity, correlation coefficient, differential phase, specific differential phase, and linear depolarization ratio. Examples will be presented demonstrating the distinctive polarimetric signatures of different scatterer types, both meteorological and non-meteorological. Note: This lesson has as a prerequisite the prior lesson, Weather Radar Fundamentals. It is strongly recommended that beginning learners complete that lesson before starting this one."

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · 26d

Checking my bkuesky feed this week/month/year.

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Tim Supinie @plustssn.autumnsky.us · Aug 28

I've released autumnplot-gl v4.0! New features:

- Station plots
- Support for globe view in Maplibre (Mapbox is in progress)
- Support for mutiple colormaps on a contour fill plot (precipitation type, for example)
- A few performance optimizations

github.com/tsupinie/aut...

GitHub - tsupinie/autumnplot-gl: Hardware-accelerated geospatial data plotting in the browser

Hardware-accelerated geospatial data plotting in the browser - tsupinie/autumnplot-gl

github.com

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Aug 28

I finally read computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1976 classic “Computer Power and Human Reason.”

This book deserves a massive revival in our current age of grotesque and largely thoughtless AI creep into everything:

JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM
COMPUTER POWER AND HUMAN REASON
FROM JUDGMENT TO CALCULATION

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 23

The Weather Underground website (but not the app) provides rain and temperature info for nearby personal weather stations and would be the most user friendly way to find out this info.

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Erich Fischer @erichfischer.bsky.social · Aug 22

Numerical weather prediction models (ECMWF IFS) still outperform AI weather models in forecasting record-breaking hot and cold extremes and unseen wind extremes

Preprint
arxiv.org/abs/2508.15724

with Zhongwei Zhang @erichfischer.bsky.social @zscheischlerjak.bsky.social and Sebastian Engelke

Numerical models outperform AI weather forecasts of record-breaking extremes

Artificial intelligence (AI)-based models are revolutionizing weather forecasting and have surpassed leading numerical weather prediction systems on various benchmark tasks. However, their ability to ...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Aug 19

5. Today I read a paper by @sabinaleonelli.bsky.social and Alexander Mussgnug that I think illustrates this point perfectly.

philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24891/1/Phil...

Convenience AI
Sabina Leonelli & Alexander Martin Mussgnug12
Abstract: This paper considers the mundane ways in which AI is being incorporated into scientific
practice today, and particularly the extent to which AI is used to automate tasks perceived to be
boring, “mere routine” and inconvenient to researchers. We label such uses as instances of
“Convenience AI” — that is situations where AI is applied with the primary intention to increase
speed and minimize human effort. We outline how attributions of convenience to AI applications
involve three key characteristics: (i) an emphasis on speed and ease of action, (ii) a comparative
element, as well as (iii) a subject-dependent and subjective quality. Using examples from medical
science and development economics, we highlight epistemic benefits, complications, and drawbacks
of Convenience AI along these three dimensions. While the pursuit of convenience through AI can
save precious time and resources as well as give rise to novel forms of inquiry, our analysis
underscores how the uncritical adoption of Convenience AI for the sake of shortcutting human labour
may also weaken the evidential foundations of science and generate inertia in how research is
planned, set-up and conducted, with potentially damaging implications for the knowledge being
produced. Critically, we argue that the consistent association of Convenience AI with the goals of
productivity, efficiency, and ease, as often promoted also by companies targeting the research market
for AI applications, can lower critical scrutiny of research processes and shift focus away from
appreciating their broader epistemic and social implications.

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 16

Wired just had a wild article about clones of top polo horses and a partnership gone wrong involving selling a cloned horse to a Russian oligarch. www.wired.com/story/clonin...

Cloning Came to Polo. Then Things Got Truly Uncivilized

A polo legend and a businessman joined forces to copy the player’s greatest horse. But with a single clone worth $800,000, some technologies are a breeding ground for betrayal.

www.wired.com

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 13

My hopeful view is that we could use low latency AIWP models to fulfill Chuck Doswell’s vision of scientific forecasting to enable real interactivity in terms of forecasters creating scenarios by adjusting weather fields. journals.ametsoc.org/downloadpdf/...

journals.ametsoc.org

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈 @davidimiller.bsky.social · Aug 13

🎤 BOOM: Federal judge just ruled to *reinstate* the suspended ~300 NSF grants at UCLA.

Determines that NSF violated the previous court order by attempting to swap "termination" with "suspension".

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

NSF’s actions violate the Preliminary Injunction. Though there may be situations where
a “termination” and “suspension” are not the same thing, there is no principled difference
between a “termination” and the immediate, indefinite, and “final” “suspension” of funding in
this context. The suspensions have the same effect, and are based on the same type of deficient
explanations, as the original terminations. NSF communicated the suspensions by means of a
form letter that failed to provide the requisite grant-specific reason for halting funding, and that
failed to adequately consider grant-specific interests, including the reliance interests of the
researchers. Therefore, pursuant to the Preliminary Injunction (Dkt. No. 55), NSF’s suspension
of the grants at issue here is VACATED. For avoidance of doubt, the Court also clarifies that
grant “termination,” as the term is used in the Preliminary Injunction, encompasses
circumstances where grant funding is cut off on a long-term or indefinite basis, like the
suspensions carried out by NSF on July 30

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 13

Automation bias is certainly a concern, and Snellman (1977) warned of a meteorological cancer from over reliance on automated guidance. The massive improvements in models and observations have outweighed any deskilling for now, but deep AI integration could be a problem.

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 7

If the goal is to draw eyes to the cloudy areas, I would pick the right one assuming the white circles are cloudy.

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 5

The overpriced contract to the license plate scanner company isn't going to pay for itself.

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

Dr. Samantha Montano @samlmontano.bsky.social · Aug 5

Do not get on this internet on the 20th anniversary of Katrina and rehabilitate George Bush I swear to god.

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 4

The Senate CJS bill didn't get passed with the other appropriations bills today because of a dispute regarding the location of the FBI's new headquarters. FBI HQ was originally supposed to be in Greenbelt, MD but Trump wants it in DC.

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 4

NOAA, NWS, and NASA funding is included in the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill. NOAA and NSF get minor cuts, and NASA gets a slight increase. The House version of the bill cuts NSF by 20% but keeps NOAA and NASA flat. Both have passed appropriations committees but not chambers.

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 4

PSA: the wind components in the GFS and GEFS cube sphere tile netCDF files are already in Earth-relative coordinates. Figured this out by making this plot after two days of wondering why the transformed wind vectors wouldn't line up across tiles.

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David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · Aug 2

A haboob?

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Reposted by David John Gagne II

LEAP-STC @leapstc.bsky.social · Aug 1

🎉🎉 SO proud of our Summer'25 REU students + Momentum Fellows who presented their research at the 2025 Summer Student Conference Poster Session in Boulder, CO! 🎉🎉

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