Nancy Rothwell

I had some bad news on the research publication front, my research group had a great paper rejected by completely unreasonable referees – they were obviously biased – or at least we think so. More work to do!

I had seen the Michael Nielsen quoted in the article speak at the University of Manchester back in September. It was an inspiring presentation full of examples of how this opens a big door for scientists to do things a new way.

Warner, T. T., 2011: Quality assurance in atmospheric modeling. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 92, 1601–1610. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00054.1 [PDF]

1. Clearly define the scientific or practical objective.

2. Identify and develop a physical understanding of the atmospheric processes that must be accurately simulated.

3. Perform a thorough analysis of all available observations.

4. Prepare an experimental design.

5. Define the required horizontal and vertical resolutions of the model.

6. Avoid the tendency to prematurely run the model, before the above-listed steps have been completed.

7. Choose the model start time and the method of model initialization to allow for spin-up of the physical processes of interest.

8. Run test simulations of evaluate the sensitivity of model solution to the computation domain size.

9. Define the most appropriate physical process parameterizations.

10. Understand the limitations to the predictability of the phenomena being modeled.

11. Establish a verification plan before the model is run and perform a thorough verification, using appropriate metrics, of the model solution using all available observations.

12. Be well organized in maintaining a detailed experimental log and the files of model code and output.

13. Use good coding practices and well-documented and well-tested software.

14. Employ open-source software tools to improve the efficiency of the modeling process.

This paper follows from Warner’s 1997 tutorial on lateral boundary conditions.

Warner, T. T., R. A. Peterson, and R. E. Treadon, 1997: A Tutorial on Lateral Boundary Conditions as a Basic and Potentially Serious Limitation to Regional Numerical Weather Prediction. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78, 2599–2617. [PDF]

Warner’s paper is also a natural companion to my paper on how to write effective case studies in meteorology.

Schultz, D. M., 2010: How to research and write effective case studies in meteorology. Electronic J. Severe Storms Meteor., 5 (2), 1-18. [PDF]

There is also complementary material in Chapter 18 in Eloquent Science.

In their 2011 Golden Bull Awards, however, the Plain English Campaign got it dead wrong.

The UK Met Office won an award for ‘empowering people to make their own decisions’ by using the technical systems for the ‘probabilities of precipitation’. Presumably, the Campaign was upset that terms such as “very likely” are replaced by something like “70% chance of rain”. This award was picked up by the UK newspapers like the Metro, Daily Mail, and Guardian. Apparently, one of the issues is that the forecasts now have an “American style” to them.

Here is the Met Office explanation for why probabilities were introduced. Specifically,

Often people want to make a decision, such as whether to put out their washing to dry, and would like us to give a simple yes or no. However, this is often a simplification of the complexities of the forecast and may not be accurate. By giving PoP we give a more honest opinion of the risk and allow you to make a decision depending on how much it matters to you. For example, if you are just hanging out your sheets that you need next week you might take the risk at 40% probability of precipitation, whereas if you are drying your best shirt that you need for an important dinner this evening then you might not hang it out at more than 10% probability. PoP allows you to make the decisions that matter to you.

Let’s face it. As good as meteorologists do with the forecasts, there is still a measure of uncertainty, even for forecasts less than a day in advance. I would like to think that communicating the uncertainty to the forecast is something that the public would appreciate, but perhaps numerical values are too much. If the American public can interpret that a 70% chance of rain is larger than a 50% chance of rain, I don’t understand why the British can’t.

These are the results from the Top Science Scandals of 2011, as determined by The Scientist magazine.

(Thanks to Dave Topping for pointing this out.)

Source: http://www.monkey-pictures.net

In writing my book and questioning the “standard” approach that people have used to give scientific presentations, I have often wondered if people stick to convention because that’s all they’ve seen. They see an outline slide or a meaningless “thank you!” slide and think, “Yeah, that’s the way to do it right.”

The question is what would happen if you could design scientific communication from scratch. Would you design a scientific conference the way it exists now? Would talks even exist, let alone PowerPoint presentations?

If you allow people to be creative and not to allow them to be biased by the past, would they have developed the traditional scientific presentation?

Check those page proofs carefully!

Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?

M. V. Berry, N. Brunner, S. Popescu, P. Shukla
(Submitted on 13 Oct 2011)

Abstract

Probably not.

[Thanks to Dan Housley for pointing this out.]

The column points out something that we scientists may know but forget from time to time: factors other than the quality of the science determine whether and how often our articles get cited by others. Among the factors that scientists have found affect the citation rate:

• whether the article gets covered by the New York Times

• whether the titles of the articles asked a question

• the length of the titles

• “highly amusing” titles

• presence of an acronym or colon (:) in the title

Some of these are positive effects on the number of citations. Some are negative effects on the number of citations. Some depend on the discipline. In any case, how to get your paper cited more frequently is apparently a game that involves more than just good science.

Enjoy!

Alon, U., 2009: How to choose a good scientific problem. Molecular Cell, 35, 726-728. DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2009.09.013. [PDF]