ROAMing with MEDUSA

Finished (well, printed) my poster for next week's international Planet Under Pressure conference today. It makes use of my recent (and surprisingly quite successful) simulation of MEDUSA-2.0 under RCP 8.5 forcing from one of the UKMO's IPCC runs. After a bit of a graceless start - largely down to disequilibrium caused by the carbon cycle's initial condition - MEDUSA managed to knuckle down and start behaving itself by the middle of the 20th century, and became nicely acidified by year 2100. The run has one acidification feedback in it (calcium carbonate production), so there were some moderately interesting points to pull out of the run in the end. EKP has spotted a few features of the run's Arctic performance that she's not especially happy about, but we might be stuck with those because of the forcing we're wedded to. We had enough trouble getting that to give us sensible ocean circulation, so I'm not confident about finessing NEMO's physical performance.

Just the actual conference to look forwards to now. It promises to be one of those strange marriages between science and politics, so I'm not holding my breath. But, as such, it'll at least be quite different from the usual run of the mill. There are a number of big political names down to speak or to host, but given the lack of urgency with which the body politic deals with environmental concerns, it may just be more talking the talk.

Anyway, given that I may be returning to no job after the conference, my lofty scoffing might be entirely academic. It'll be difficult to be quite so environmentally scrupulous if I find myself sans employment.

AMEMR III, Plymouth

AMEMR III, Plymouth, a set on Flickr.

Spent much of this last week down in Plymouth at the third AMEMR meeting. For once I took the time to get out and about around Plymouth and managed to see, and photograph, much of its centre and harbour.

As for AMEMR, well, it was much as usual: a handful of excellent talks, many good ones, and a few that were wildly impenetrable or obscure. And it's still the case that there's nothing else really like it for giving an overview of marine modelling. The conference's focus on modelling means that people are able to talk at more length about techniques, and don't have to worry about being pummelled by disinterested observational scientists. Of course, some talks were nothing but technique, but you have to take the rough with the smooth.

The main emergent theme this time was trade-offs in plankton ecophysiology. On this note, things got off to a rousing start with a tour-de-force on this subject by the DEB modeller Jorn Bruggeman. He talked on the same subject at AMEMR II, but seems to have made vast leaps forwards since then. I don't think we're quite ready to give up on mainstream models like MEDUSA just yet, but it certainly felt like a Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin moment. We'll see.

Aside from the science, the conference was a very pleasant opportunity to catch up with near- and far-flung colleagues. Usually over alcohol and food. While we didn't get the chance to make an extended night of it, I was able grab several beers with fellow EAMG survivor SME. And BS and I had an opportunity to "fight" it out over free will (yet again). Most excellent.

The upshot of all of which is that, should there be an AMEMR IV, I'll be there.

Wordle vs. MEDUSA-1.0

Which words did I need most when describing MEDUSA?

MEDUSA-1.0

MEDUSA-1.0, a set on Flickr.

A long-standing, and much-delayed, monster has finally been birthed. Most likely to a disinterested world.