The Beginning

This is my ninth blog. Although none of my previous blogs got past 30 posts. Some didn't even get one post. Oy.

I feel the need for another one because I'm moving around a world in which I am very unfamiliar, and want to document and remember my experience as best as I can. I'm finishing up my second year (of at least 5) as a MS/PhD student in atmospheric chemistry and climate science at Cornell University. I'm encountering new people everyday, with viewpoints and opinions that extend from the universal to the global to the regional to the local and the individual. I'm forming many of my own viewpoints and opinions, and I'd like them to be as well-thought-out as possible. I aim to write what I see and do for my own sanity, and for anyone else out there who would like to see some aspect of the academic world of climate science.

I know that anecdotal evidence is not proof of anything, or a representative of the whole, or even of a portion of the larger picture, but it's one thing that I have, and one of the things that I can share. It will, of course, be only one perspective. But I hope it will be an interesting one.

Coming attractions:

Over the next six months, I will be:

• traveling to Boulder, Colorado to learn another atmospheric chemistry model (I am already fairly familiar with a global climate model),
• will be participating in a workshop addressing climate change, regional decision making and air quality,
• will be finishing up my first academic paper and submitting it to some atmospheric science journal,
• will be preparing for (and potentially executing) my Master's defense (or least an equivalent exam),
• will be switching to a new project looking at the impact of global climate on the region of the Northeast US, and the impact that the Northeastern US has on the global climate

I hope this ends up being a useful exercise (personally) and at least an interesting read for anyone who may be interested. I hope to hit on the global perspective whenever I can, as well as bringing this perspective down to the individual and personal level along the lines of what Stephen Bocking recommends in Nature's Experts: Science, Politics, and the Environment.

"While research has made it possible to look into the next century, it is also necessary, when considering political initiatives, to climb down from this global, long-term approach, to make climate change meaningful at the local level, narrowing the gap between how scientists think of climate (in terms of a global system) and how the public sees it (in terms of local weather).

. . .

Linking climate science with the practicalities of everyday life might be the best way of assuring that knowledge of global change is used effectively in creating, and not merely forecasting, our future."

He's just referring to making connections between global climate science and individual experience (which I hope to be able to do), but I also intend on connecting this academic world of climate science with my personal, individual experience. We'll see.