Second Week

Wow, time goes fast.

I don't have too much time left here, but I've made some significant progress. I'm able to run WRF just fine, and I've run through several of the test cases provided on the online tutorial. I've installed (configured and compiled) WRF/Chem and it seems to work just fine without any chemistry (I have one running right now), and my goal for today is to get something running with actual chemistry. That is the main goal of this trip: to get WRF/Chem running.

It is very nice to have people around that can answer questions. I still feel bad taking up their time, but I keep reminding myself that I enjoy helping someone out, as long as they are not too demanding. Katrina works a few cubicles over and she's been a real help, and then Alma is down one floor (who is also going to be working on this EPA grant), and she's also giving me boatloads of guidance.

It's strange, because Peter is not at all familiar with WRF/Chem, so I cannot go to him for help. I can (and do) go to him for guidance and advice. But for the most part for this project, this WRF/Chem is going to be my baby. And I am enjoying this process. Well, not in the sense that I would chose to do this everyday with my free time, but I do like the process (the careful planning and positioning of the right input files, the careful selection of the namelist variables and specifics of the run, and then the little burst of endorphins that I get when I see the phrase "Successful Completion of XXX"). This is an incredible powerful tool, and I have increasing control over it. I can do a lot with this.

It is also reassuring that I am picking up the intricacies of modeling much more quickly than last summer, where I struggled for months to get the CCSM global climate model running. This one is similar in some senses, and very different in others. But I have enough of a basic understanding that the differences were more in context, and easier to incorporate into my understanding and conceptualization of the model.

I'm trying really hard to write down and log what I'm doing here. I am learning a lot of intricacies, and I often have trouble remembering these things after I'm done. I'm typing up little rubrics, or step-by-step guides to the basic operation of these things. I know that the manuals have these as well, but if I take the time to write it and fix it and make sure it works, I have a better chance at being able to remember the details later on. And, because I intend to show as many detailed slices of this life as I can, here's an example this rubric:

NCAR Day Two

I've been moved up to a nice, open cubicle. I'm able to focus on my work, and I don't know where I'm staying past tomorrow night. Yikes!

I have offers from two people I know from Cornell for floorspace, or couchspace, and I'm in contact with one or two people regarding room rentals for next week. I may be bopping around quite a bit. Tonight I'm going to look into Hostels, because I think that wouldn't be all that bad, and I've never been in one before.

The trip so far has been an interesting experience, with some relaxing, some good work, and many frustrations. First, is the housing problem, but I'm sure I'll find something. Second, and I just realized this today, the bike I bought/rented last night has a bad back wheel. When I press hard of the pedals, the back wheel nicks the left side of the bike frame and creates an artificial braking effect. Not fun for a long bike ride. So I'm going to take the bike back to Play-it-Again sports and see what they say. I payed $100 for the bike, and they've agreed to buy it back for $50 when I'm done. If this wheel thing is something that can be fixed for ~$20, I'll go for it. Otherwise I'll return it tonight and just live off of the shuttles and buses. I'd like to bike around, but not for too much money and not at too much of a cost. I'll be fine with my backpack and suitcase, but a backpack and suitcase and faulty bike is a little much.

I'm enjoying the time I'm spending with Mary. She's very nice, delightfully intellectual, and has great taste in books and movies. This morning we stayed up and chatted about Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Neal Stephenson, Phillip Pullman, Beowolf, audiobooks, movie adaptations, among other things. She has two cats (Luna and Chism), which are friendly and a delight.

Here in NCAR, I've met a few people that I'll be working more closely with these next few days. There are a lot of researchers here for long-term, mid-term, and short-term stints. As a two-weeker, I feel welcomed but not embraced.

I am off now to return my bike. I'll walk and take the shuttle and bus the rest of my time here. Keep it simple, Ben. Today was a day where I got almost nothing done, which is not why I am here. That's frustrating.

First day at NCAR

I have arrived at NCAR, and have all of this week and next week to tackle a boat-load of knowledge and material. And to enjoy Boulder as much as I can.

I am staying at Dan's sisters house until Thursday, after which I do not know where I'll be staying. I hope today to make a few phone calls for a rental place for next week, and I may be staying in a hostel or someone's floor on Friday and Saturday nights. We'll see.

And I have a new camera with fun pictures, and here are some of them so far:

On the flight, I saw a anvil thundercloud in the distance.

And some fun popcorn looking clouds down below.

And I nearly tripped over a Northern Flicker on a walk last night.

That's it for now...more pictures and updates soon, when I actually get some work done.

Worf (Chemistry)

I'm preparing for my trip to Boulder next Monday by attempting to run a different model: WRF-CHEM (Weather Research and Forecasting model, with chemistry). It can focus with much higher resolution (even down to a few meters) than the model I am currently using (the National Center for Atmospheric Research's CCSM (Community Climate Systems Model) ), which has a resolution on the order of a few hundred kilometers, at best.

Once again, I find myself venturing into programming territory that is confusing, frustrating, and occasionally rewarding. I've been installing and configuring WRF for about an hour, when I ran into a roadblock: I didn't know what compiler I've been using, which type of computer I've been connecting to, and which particular run option to choose to ensure the successful operation of WRF. Luckily, I have Dan, sitting two desks to my left in an otherwise empty cubicle (it can hold up to 5 people, but three of the desks are currently empty). He's been doing this stuff for almost as long as I've been alive, and he's tremendously helpful. The answers to the above questions, by the way, are a gfortran compiler, a x86_64 Linux machine, and option #15.

So while I'm waiting for WRF to optimize...or compile...or both, I took a snapshot of my desktop as an example:


I have two monitors (well, a laptop and an external monitor), which is why the picture is so wide. You can see my pretty background, my chats (Hi Hnin and Toni!) and the xterminal that is currently struggling to compile. I'm working my way through this tutorial so that I'll have some idea of what's going on when I arrive in Boulder.

I often feel like I'm struggling to have some idea of what's going on around me. I rarely feel like I have a complete grasp on things, and every time I do feel like I understand, something new and confusing pops up. It's an exiting life, well, comparatively. I'm not scuba-diving for a living, but I'm also not performing banal tasks day after day. I learn something almost hourly, and on some days make huge leaps in productivity. Other days (e.g. today) are slow, with tiny little baby-steps of productivity.

I'm going to go do some reading until this thing finishes compiling.

. . .

It finished (after an hour), but it looks like I ran a real case, instead of an ideal case (which is what the tutorial called for). I'll have to go back and clean it up and run an ideal case. I also didn't pipe the output to a log file, which I will do now.

. . .

And now I'm running into Fortran library problems. It seemed to compile just fine, but when I tried to run the executable file, I get some error about unfindable Fortran libraries. I may be running this on the wrong computer...I just emailed my adviser to ask for some advice on this. Whoa, he got back quickly. I'm doing this on the wrong computer.

The Fundamental Obligation

"Thus, rather than sublimate human agency to a standard of casual optimality, individuals must continue to navigate the world in pursuit of their own visions of human flourishing, attempting to do good, while plagued at every instant by limited information, limited control, and limited assurance of success for their chosen projects. They must recognize that no standard of normative ethics, however persuasively theorized, can eliminate the fundamental obligation to independently evaluate the variety of reasons that exist for choosing and acting at any given moment and, indeed, to be ready at any moment to generate reasons for choosing and acting that are uniquely their own.

No decision-making rubric can permit the individual to ventriloquize morality."

- Douglas Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, p. 14

An overview of where I work, and who I work with

I want to describe briefly my work environment. I don't really want to use too many names, especially when I am describing someone's work habits or discussions not intended for wider distribution, but I don't really feel like there is anything to hide. I think I may be walking a somewhat fine line here; I want to be descriptive and clear in how I describe my work (I think this should always be transparent), but I don't want to violate anyone's privacy, or reveal things that they would rather have kept in confidence. I'll need to describe people, and places, and I intend on including pictures eventually. I want this to be a record of my life, social and academic, as well as a representative anecdote of life in academia, or life as a graduate in climate science. So, if for some reason you're reading this and I've included something you don't want on here, or feel like I've crossed a line, please let me know. I'll fix it.

So...

I work in the Soil and Water (S&W) Lab in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering (BEE). There are around 25 people working in this lab, including some undergraduates for the summer. There are graduates working for a Masters, a PhD, or both. There are post-docs. There are research associates. Not counting the undergrads, I'd guess the age range is from low-20s to somewhere around the 50s. I've been here since last summer.

The reason I am in this lab, and not a climate lab, is that there really isn't a climate lab at Cornell. There are many people who work on climate science, but they come from different backgrounds. Meteorology, or modeling, or air quality, or geology, etc. As a result, the "climate community," if I can designate such a thing, is spread all over campus. Peter, my advisor, does climate and biofuels work. The biofuels work landed him (and therefore, me) in this department.

This lab is particularly social, and there is a decent amount of socializing among the labs in this department. The trouble with inter-lab socializing is that many of the wings of this building are locked, as so I can't just wander over and chat with the people another lab. Within this department, many of us attend movie nights, happy hours, potlucks, parties, barbecues, festivals, and celebrations together. Not, of course, exclusively. But a fair portion of my social life involves or revolves around the social lives of people in this department. I am thrilled to be able to consider them friends. Some I probably won't interact with much once we part ways, but there are many who I hope to keep in touch with long after our work here is done.

I also see on a regular basis people from...at least seven different departments. Some are friends of friends, or acquaintances of acquaintances, or classmates. We'll often discuss each of our work when we're hanging out, but not in any great depth. There is no actual interdepartmental collaboration here, just interdepartmental socializing. I've stargazed, bird-watched, rock-wall climbed, brewed beer, watched movies, made food, bon-fired, hiked, trivia-nighted, and partied with people specifically from other departments. I also interact regularly with several people from outside of Cornell, mostly through the birdwatching and hiking. I meet new people almost every day, so I am not left wanting further socializing.

Academically, I've taken classes in eight departments. I've attended seminars and actual academic events in at least two more. My current research involves (so far) only me and my advisor, Peter, with some collaboration with researchers over in Boulder, Colorado (where the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is located). My next project, which starts this fall, will involve people from five departments (BEE, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS), City and Regional Planning, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Civil and Environmental Engineering) as well as some people from Boulder. And I am actively trying to find someone for my committee who in some form covers policy, public communication, law, or some combination.

My committee is basically the three people that I need to convince in order to get a degree and graduate. So far it is made up of Peter (my main advisor, an atmospheric chemist and climate modeler), his wife, Natalie (an atmospheric scientist (meteorology and climate) and climate modeler), and Kieran (a city and regional planner), although the last one is only temporary. While he's working on my next project, I'd like to find a different person for my third committee member.

Overall, I would say that my work is (or is about to become) highly interdisciplinary. And I'm loving it. It's something I think I'd like to keep doing in the future. I will write more about what I like in the interdisciplinary work later. In fact, I'll write again later. It's time for dinner and our movie night.