The main problem with bluesky is…. . . . . . the almost complete lack of bots that just show nice pictures of trains. One of the few things Twitter still had going for it tbh
Not all those who wander are lost. Climate variability and impacts by day, cities by evening, rock violin by night (sometimes all three at once).
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The main problem with bluesky is…. . . . . . the almost complete lack of bots that just show nice pictures of trains. One of the few things Twitter still had going for it tbh
The designated stroller space is so key... Same feature (right across from the huge middle doors, in an area with no seats to enable maximum I/O movement) is present in Vienna. One of the reasons it's so much less stressful with a stroller there than on NYC buses
Comparing global km-scale climate models to the resolution of coarser CMIP6 models. The video shows precipitation flux and accumulated precipitation for 2025, ending with a quantification of the difference in resolutions. Animation: Michael Böttinger (DKRZ) Method & paper: bsky.app/profile/luka...
(Long line of people walking up the escalator behind me too, so I couldn’t stop, quads burning like crazy by the end of it…)
Tbh if it’s two floors or less on the subway, I usually find it more convenient/faster to just carry the stroller up the stairs. Only really got screwed once, when the elevator at Lex / 53 EM was out of service (and so was the escalator) and I was carrying it up out of that crazy cavern 😩
DeutschesEckBasisTunnel when
My grandma ingrained into me as a kid on hikes that one approaches the mountain deliberately and cautiously.
Exactly! A lot of folks in my family grew up in the mountains, several were pretty serious hikers and even mountaineers, all have a deep emotional connection to the mountains. They’re all super careful, and more careful the more experienced they are!
My grew-up-in-California brain instantly was like “wow that’s gonna collapse in the big one”, before realizing we were still talking about Chicago
It kills me that a zipcar is honestly sometimes cheaper than two round trips on the Hudson line to prominent hiking areas. Awful incentives. US Einfach-Raus ticket when
The guy’s even a meteorologist! But all of his NASA funding articles seem written with the tone of, oh well, all that earth science stuff is nice and all, but it would be great if it stopped distracting the agency from its real mandate, building a nuclear reactor on the moon
It kills me that so many people on the NASA beat are space bois like Berger, who really don’t understand the worth of the earth science NASA does (and why NASA specifically does it) 🙄
Tbh surprised “the nice AirTrain they have at JFK, but for real neighborhoods” isn’t an easier sell
2018 astrophysicists Adam Frank & Gavin Schmidt introduce Silurian Hypothesis, idea an advanced civilization existed on Earth before humans. Would we even know? What clues might a civilization leave behind? Peter Kinney story: tinyurl.com/3kxetj9m Scientific preprint paper arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748
But it was funny how the food always happened to be really good when admin was visiting (ie when the contract was up) 😅 (We also don’t talk about the ‘theme days’ anymore… eg on 🇦🇺 day someone thought a bloomin’ onion was a quartered (and otherwise untouched) onion, fried so it was still raw inside)
At UChicago, one of the best things about moving off campus (apart from saving money even after the financial aid cut you’d get for leaving the dorms) was finally having a good kitchen and no longer relying on the company that also makes the US’s most terrifying prison food for sustenance 🙄
Never ask postdocs what they'll be doing next year, that's considered terribly offensive in their culture.
And the only (very noisy) way to walk across the river when you once again have a long LSL layover at ALB 😅
Ngl, the job location may ... limit... the applicant pool (Reminded of bsky.app/profile/andr... )
Full-time, permanent Lectureship in Forestry or Agroforestry at Bangor University, which has an excellent reputation in forest sciences. jobs.bangor.ac.uk/details.php....
www.reddit.com/r/drehscheib... Here’s where I saw it - looks like it was Leo Express that submitted the app. I wonder if track charges are cheaper? The comments are skeptical, though one person said that they’re assuming 4.5h to Vienna, which is not uncompetitive with intercity buses
It sounds like they want to take the loop and stop at Ottakring, but either way it won’t be fast (though, since they’re already taking the route via Gmünd I have a feeling they’re very much not prioritizing speed anyways 😅)
RegioJet even already goes Prag - Budapest via Vienna instead of via Bratislava like the ECs. Some private operator (forgot which one) even just submitted an application to do Prag - Vienna - points east, but via Budweis, Velenice/Gmünd and the S45 line around Vienna (😅)
Tell that to the Germans, the Austrians did their best 🙄
Seit Anfang 2022 waren in Österreich 6 Monate kühler, 3 relativ normal (=im Schnitt der aktuellen Klimanormalperiode), 34 Monate lagen, zum Teil sehr deutlich, über dem Schnitt, waren also wärmer als üblich. Ohne Klimawandel sollten sich die 3 halbwegs gleichmäßig verteilt haben.
Ich lese oft: „Schade, dass sich Zeitungen nicht zusammentun. Ich würde 19 Euro im Monat zahlen, um Artikel aus mehreren Zeitungen auswählen zu können.“ Es gibt sowas. Klingt nicht so cool wie „News Prime“ oder „Newsflix plus“, aber „Mitglied der Büchereien Wien“ - und kostet 34 Euro im Jahr.
Yeah, in the US there’s very little culture of sidewalk parking (except by cops, around police precincts), at least compared to eg France
The Internet Roadtrip is now trying to cross Labrador. A 100-foot gap in Street View coverage almost forced them to turn back, but as they approached the break, someone got a friend in Labrador City to drive to the spot IRL and take and upload a panoramic photo to fix it. neal.fun/internet-roa...
The subway risk chart you've been waiting for (Sawyer County, Wisconsin, is where Sean Duffy is from). Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
I grew up with us scrimping and saving so that every few years we could go spend a few hours weeks in Germany so that we could know our family, our culture, our language, and our people. This is a common working class third culture kid experience
There have been 87 car deaths in NYC so far this year, 51 of them pedestrians killed by cars There have been 2 homicides in the subway*
After a quiet period, we are very happy to finally join Bluesky!🦋. This is the official account of the #Climate Division of the @egu.eu Follow us to stay up to date with Division news, blog posts, Campfires, ways to get involved, and more!😊 We are also on LinkedIn🎉 Come say hello! #EGU
We have decided to ban the use of GenAI for research, writing & creative work at our organization. In fact, we make people sign an agreement saying that their research, analysis, writing, and creative work are *theirs* and not done by GenAI.
Incredible shrinking Cone of Uncertainty! Kartina 2005 vs Helene 2024. Dramatic improvement in hurricane forecasting due to expertise of NOAA scientists at NHC & AOML. Since 2005 forecast error on 5-day track has decreased by ~50%! We often take these accurate forecasts for granted but... 1/
Rare American-designed train still running in Europe - 70+-year-old stainless steel car produced by license from Budd, being used by private open access operator European Sleeper…
For these reasons, we cannot simply look to trends in mean precipitation, or mean evaporation, to tell us anything about changes in *extreme* precipitation or evaporative demand (i.e., atmospheric "thirst"). To do so would be deeply misleading. Yet it remains common practice.
This is the basis for "Expanding Atmospheric Sponge" effect that we coined to help visualize practical implications stemming from more heavier downpours (i.e., flash floods) & also more extreme evaporative demand (e.g., faster-developing droughts, more intense wildfires).
It’s funny how this is separate from the *other* long-running billboard campaign to get NYCers to move to Ohio, but that one seems like it was the state gov or tourism board or whatever, and was mainly talking about how Ohioans have yards
Thanks to Jeremy for this great graph. For city residents who work, low income are ~evenly represented among cyclist commute trips, $25k-$100k are underrepresented, and $100k+ are overrepresented.
We at Policy Integrity recently concluded our analysis of major rules in the courts through the Biden Administration. Links below to our study and op-ed. The bottom line? Forum-shopping has skyrocketed and is having an effect. \1 policyintegrity.org/tracking-maj... thehill.com/opinion/judi...
The 28th st station is built on top of an ancient stream that drains the slightly higher ground to the east. (1865 Viele map via davidrumsey.com)
Munich, Vienna, Hamburg all have plug doors on their new trains I believe - I think it’s pretty common on latest-generation European rolling stock
Also in case you haven’t seen the even prettier newish Munich U-Bahn Stock
This is one of my biggest complaints about US rolling stock! Beyond the lower claustrophobia, easier wayfinding, easier time trying to figure out which door to enter to minimize crowding, it’s just so much nicer. Imagine going through the Chicago loop on one of these, or over the Gowanus F/G bridge
Quote tweeting w alt text because we need to properly communicate emergency messages National Weather Service flash flood warning for all 5 boroughs of NYC. Spread the word and stay safe!
There is currently an NWS flash flood warning in effect for all five boroughs of NYC. But no City agency has posted it on this platform. Please help spread the word. “If you live in a basement apartment or low-lying area, be ready to move to higher ground.”
And more fundamentally, the reanalyses aren’t developed primarily with the intent to get trends right…
Citizens, the state insurer of last resort in Florida, buys hurricane forecasts from *Global Weather Oscillations*????!?!?! www.insurancejournal.com/news/southea... Climate crowd will need a stiff drink to get through this FAQ: www.globalweatheroscillations.com/faqs
ERA5 has very sketchy thermodynamics trends in east Africa for example 😅 (Now if only all the reanalysis groups would also store their data in climate scientist-friendly formats, eg daily, single-variable, single file stores to make running everything on multiple ones easy 🙄)
Noooooo okay that legitimately sucks
Are they as wide as those on the American railjets* though 😩 *the new Siemens venture cars being used by Amtrak Midwest, and eventually everywhere else here
“Warning, this picture contains extreme views”
ah; @amtrak.com, marrying the ease of airport pre-travel procedures with the aesthetics of a highway intercity bus stop (and now with the new Venture coaches, the seat width of those buses)! The best way to travel* *unless you are doomed by experience to compare it to other train systems 🙄
Yay, good news! If you have expertise in Climate Science or ML/AI, please read below about my project "From sparse data to full spatio-temporal fields: surface ocean carbon and beyond" and get in touch! I'll be recruiting in the Fall for a post-bacc, a postdoc, and possibly a grad student. 🌊
What do we think tenure and benefits were like at the university of Constantinople, circa 1300 😅
jfc, I got an email from a fact checker about whether cloud seeding could have caused the Texas floods. The answer: cloud seeding is (almost always) a scam. For many many many reasons, it is not responsible for the flooding.
Like, if we’re already gonna somehow legally mandate two conductors, can we at least be creative in turning that into better service…
Tbh really don’t understand why this isn’t part of the second conductor’s job on MTA trains…. This or visual paging on the new trains’ screens would be sooooooo useful
This (nearly 2 hour long!) livestream discussing the meteorology and broader context surrounding the Texas flood disaster was recorded live, and is now available in its entirety at link below. Journalists: as always, please feel free to pull any audio/video content from this recorded broadcast.
Congestion pricing by the # ‘s 6 months in: * 67k fewer drivers entering zone daily * Delays in Holland Tunnel down 65% * Traffic deaths down 32% so far in 2025 * $500m projected this year for MTA capital improvements * B’way attendance +12% * Subway ridership +7% So yes this program is a SUCCESS.
Another issue here is mismatch between public expectation & scientific reality re: what's possible in predicting localized convective extremes (i.e., severe/torrential t-storms). Days/environments supportive of such risk are predictable; exact timing/location/intensity of subsequent extremes is not.
I'm not really clear on why a region so well known for its severe flash flood susceptibly apparently did not have a better warning system in place. That's something I'm sure others with better local knowledge can dissect in greater detail.
As always, this is not to blame the victims! Quite the opposite; this truly was a sudden & massive event and occurred at worst possible time (middle of the night). But problem, once again, was not a bad weather prediction: it was one of "last mile" forecast/warning dissemination.
There have been claims that NOAA/NWS did not foresee catastrophic TX floods--but that's simply not true. This was undoubtedly an extreme event, but messaging rapidly escalated beginning ~12 hrs prior. Flood Watch mid PM, "heads up" outlook late PM, flash flood warnings ~1am.
I’ve read a lot of research on air conditioning, heat waves, and mortality, and there’s extremely strong consensus among actual experts about “we need to expand global access to air conditioning at the same time as we engage in other sustainable measures, like better architecture and green spaces.”
It’s often argued that they do, and there’s a lot of literature with evidence of the particular impact of hot nights, but even with many identification strategies out there, I think it’s still hard to disentangle from overall heat-driven mortality
Der Standard (center-lefty Austrian Daily) had a “actually, A/Cs are dangerous because the air they spit out is low humidity and some A/Cs can be bacterial breeding grounds” article that mentions heat deaths exactly 0 times, and, just, argh
It's often assumed that the best approach for climate applications is to select the best models, downscale them, and compute statistics of interest. In fact, in new work led by Adrienne Wootten, we find the downscaling process scrambles the meaning of 'best'...
Seems a lot more useful than the Versailles-Nanterre express side of it, heh
Sorry, starting in 2028** (Berlin - Naples is about the distance of New York - Orlando. Planned trip time around 14 h)
New high-speed (well, with high-speed rolling stock and using the fast lines when possible) connections filed for next year in Europe - including Berlin-Milan and Berlin-Naples (!) direct, once a day, via Innsbruck and the Brenner pass
Wäre das die NB.1.8.1-Welle gewesen?
Super interesting, thanks!
What is the price-effect of the entry of an "intensive" competitor on a rail line? The effect is not always easily visible due to market fluctuations. Here a new paper on Research in Transportation Economics, written with Evgeniia Shtele, using Synthetic Control Method.
(By “austria” I mean the legacy federal railways of course, not the private competitors)
Thinking about external validity for, say, the US, where Amtrak has adopted airline prices (so there’s a price *floor* with price increases with demand)
Apologies if this is covered in the paper (will read); but how does this interact with different types of fare structures? I’m thinking specifically how Austria has a price *ceiling* with discounts (less familiar w/ CZ, IT)?
(biased, but even though I love HafenCity, I think the Viennese are better at that game than the Hamburgers ;) But HafenCity definitely is more applicable in the port context. As long as one doesn't feel the need to replicate the U-shaped missed-connections-heavy U-Bahn line, hah!)
Adding a plug for the absolutely lovely Viennese tram- (Nordbahnviertel, Sonnwendviertel) or subway- (Aspern, though that will eventually also get a tramway, several other smaller infills along the U2, and the future Rothneusiedl dev)-and-park-centric new dense, mixed-use urban development zones.
Also very looking forward to level boarding on the fed. railways (WESTbahn had been running Stadler double-decker EMUs for a while; but these days the ÖBB is cheaper if you have a discount card + has timed connections to regional rail lines along the way, which I often take to reach the main line)
The extra capacity on the intercities is very needed - despite 2+ tph by the federal railways and 1-2 tph by the private operator WESTbahn, trains, especially on Fri / Sun, are often completely packed, many standees. + the EMUs should speed up the all-stop service over the current loco-hauled one!
New Austrian double-decker EMUs had their interiors revealed today - they’ll be running the all-stop intercity services on the western railway line to Salzburg from Vienna come the 2026 timetable change. Check out the train simulator in the kid’s section!!
Not just at tiny stations, this happens at Penn!! (At least at one incredibly dumb platform)
Also would reduce the issue of that one platform in Penn that’s too short for the longest LIRR trains, where I ended up crossing over between married pairs to get out of the train once (real happy no one was in a wheelchair or with a stroller that time…)
Donald Duck comics are still a huge regularly sold thing in the German speaking world (in the format of Lustige Taschenbücher - “merry pocketbooks”); or at least were still when I was growing up in the aughts. Still sold in checkout lines and convenience stores. Never really seen any in the US 😅
Probably the chillest transfers I’ve had have all been Nordic - KEF, CPH, ARL. ZRH in theory not bad, but the US was particularly zealous with handing out SSSSes there for years for some reason - multiple times over half the plane got pulled aside
Ooof hard disagree on AMS, FRA, DUB - the former two I’ve always been stressed and running a mile, in Dublin i always end up having a connecting flight in the dumb satellite terminal with no amenities and too little seating with a 200ft bus ride to get there :/ (Really miss flying through KEF tho)
PSA: NYC has a map of places you can go to cool down from the heat finder.nyc.gov/coolingcente...
I suspect that fact that the vast majority of LLM users don’t seem to have received this (really very simple!) message is because the AI companies have a vested interest in us not understanding it. “ChatGPT is smart, it just makes mistakes sometimes” is much more marketable than the truth.
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
The massive speed improvements on the Austrian west railway by a private operator (WESTbahn, an open access operator) who used EMUs instead of loco-hauled trainsets (the European original of the Venture sets coming to Amtrak soon, incidentally) seems informative here too…
Huh, fascinating
Like did people generally agree what “fruits” and “vegetables” were, and then scientists mapped the name “fruit” onto “seed-bearing structures of flowering plants”, which then awkwardly expanded the definition to other things? (Or botanists* not sure about which field would do this)
So a question I’ve always had here - was the distinction between fruits and vegetables at first culinary and was then imperfectly mapped onto biological traits by ecologists, or did def of either just expand over time to cover things that used to be called the other culinarily?
(though tbh the "all the lights turn on when the train is recoupled" is a software issue that presumably can theoretically be fixed... the broader question is, which routes would fill up and be efficient to run directly instead without swapping train cars in Nürnberg or whatever)
This is the way, wish ÖBB did more routes a bit like that. The middle of the night “all the lights turn on for some reason” that comes with reshuffling the consists is obnoxious. (And fewer middle of the night stops close together probably cuts down on theft too, which is an issue on some routes)
🙌🙌 great to hear!
the newest JP Morgan climate risk report was released yesterday, this one focused on ports. the thing that stands out to me is just how much finance needs not only government data, but academia to interpret it. the main data on port risk come from open access articles like Nature Climate Change
I thought of another one. The mercury in your fish comes from coal burning plants