Sign in

Brian Groenke

@bgroenke.bsky.social
113 followers 174 following 86 posts

Scientist, (Bayesian) data nerd, software engineer, and researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research @pik-potsdam.bsky.social working at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and computational geoscience. Opinions my own.

PostsRepliesMedia
Brian Groenke @bgroenke.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
This might be one of @iris-meredith.bsky.social's best essays yet. deadsimpletech.com/blog/no-such...
deadsimpletech.com
There's no such thing as Just a Tool | deadSimpleTech
Heidegger thinks about tools like so: a tool is something (a thing that has being in the Heideggerian sense, not necessarily an object) that represents an extension of human capabilities in some way. ...
040
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 04/07/2026
Hotter and hotter and hotter www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
New records set in many European countries
5436287
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Adrian Leyser Sturm @leysersturm.eurosky.social · 27/06/2026
The historic #heatwave in #Germany continues. More than 240 stations have set new all-time records, more than 40 stations have reached 40 °C or higher, and a new national record (41.5 °C) has been set. The station-wide average was over 37 degrees, higher than ever before.
Temperature maximum in Germany, 27 Jun 26.
16427
Reposted by Brian Groenke
tante @tante.cc · 10/06/2026
A court in Munich declared that Google is liable for their "AI summaries" and all its hallucinations. This brings "AI" slop in line with all other products: "AI" is basically the only product where a provider can deliver unchecked garbage and put all liability on the consumer.
the-decoder.com
Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers
A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previous limited liability protections for search engine operators don't apply to AI overviews. In this case, Google's AI had falsely linked two publishers to fraud and made claims that didn't appear in any of the linked sources. The ruling could set a precedent for AI-generated content liability worldwide.
131343530
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
A major US deep-ocean monitoring network is being scaled back. “Ongoing monitoring of the ocean is critical, especially now. Concern in the oceanography community about major ocean current changes ahead is large,” says PIKs @rahmstorf.bsky.social. edition.cnn.com/2026/06/03/c...
edition.cnn.com
The oceans are in deep trouble. The Trump administration just ditched a vital deep-sea monitoring system | CNN
The Trump administration will dismantle a $368 million monitoring system that provides critical data on the world’s oceans, sparking alarm among scientists
01914
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
NEW in @nature.com Climate Change: Investing before 2030 to pivot away from coal in steel production is now 53% cheaper than what it would cost to reduce the same amount of emissions later on in other parts of the economy or through carbon removals. Learn more: www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/late...
03018
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Jakob Zscheischler @zscheischlerjak.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
In our new paper in Science Advances, we show that AI-based forecasting models are not yet very good at predicting record-breaking events
092
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
“we are trapping 21st-century minds inside 19th-century academic hierarchies.” This essay gets a lot right about problems with German science. I would add that the hierarchies and precarious contracts lead also to systemic abuse and scientific misconduct. open.substack.com/pub/realimag...
Germany does not lack talent, and it does not lack funding. But we are trapping 21st-century minds inside 19th-century academic hierarchies. We are asking brilliant young scientists to build the future of the German economy, but refusing to give them the lab space, the job security, or the scientific independence to actually do it. If we want to reclaim our place as an industrial superpower, we have to stop the rat race of trying to keep every technology and structure alive that made us successful in the 20th century. Instead, we must fix our system that pushes our most ambitious scientists away. The money is there. The talent can be there. Now, we also need the courage to fix what’s broken.
316153
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Nature @nature.com · 27/02/2026
Weeks after the US Congress rejected unprecedented cuts to science budgets that the administration of US President Donald Trump had sought for 2026, funding to several agencies that award research grants is still not freely flowing go.nature.com/3OvYRSZ
go.nature.com
White House stalls release of approved US science budgets
The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.
13625
Brian Groenke @bgroenke.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
I was deeply disappointed to see @hossenfelder.bsky.social embrace full climate doomerism in this video. Despite the limited but nevertheless noteworthy progress made in recent years, Sabine cherry picks a few headlines and concludes that humanity has "given up" on climate change. This is ludicrous.
youtube.com
Why I fear for the future of mankind
YouTube video by Sabine Hossenfelder
230
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Future #EU contribution to #GlobalHeating could be halved without placing extra burden on the economy. An economic PIK study in the top journal JEEM calculates the effectiveness of “clean-up certificates” (emission right + removal obligation). #Climate #Edenhofer www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/late...
11410117
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
Why is losing ice from land a major problem for people living near the ocean? Using a miniature beach to demonstrate one of the many impacts of going past #planetaryboundaries, the Planetary Boundaries Science lab asks "Is sea level rise worse than you think?"👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4ao...
youtube.com
Is sea level rise worse than you think? Planetary Boundaries Science
YouTube video by Planetary Boundaries Science
38884409
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Daniel Klotz @danklotz.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
artificialbureaucracy.substack.com/p/context-wi...
artificialbureaucracy.substack.com
Context Widows
or, of GPUs, LPUs, and Goal Displacement
111
Brian Groenke @bgroenke.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
@lilybellesweet.bsky.social
000
Reposted by Brian Groenke
David John Gagne II @djgagnedos.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Based on what I have been hearing about the NCAR situation, no one knew anything until the USA Today article came out. That means there isn’t much actual organization inside the administration to pull this off and a chance to fight back. Call your congresspeople today! Especially republicans.
03411
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Johannes Quaas @jquaas.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Attacking NCAR is enormously self-destructive for America. NCAR is the leading centre in weather and climate research in the world. We Europeans often travel to NCAR to collaborate, discuss and learn. Hurting the centre will cause damage that is irreversible for years to decades with global impact.
0195
Brian Groenke @bgroenke.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
This news is nothing short of a tragedy and an outrage. I urge my American friends and colleagues to call your congressional representatives and resist this blatant attack on science and academic freedom! www.rmpbs.org/blogs/scienc...
rmpbs.org
Trump administration vows to break up National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder | Rocky Mountain PBS
Russ Vought, President Donald Trump’s budget chief, called NCAR “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
010
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
PIK at #IPCC: Nine PIK scientists joined the first Lead Authors’ Meeting for the 7th Assessment Report on the state of climate science in Paris last week. The meeting marked the start of drafting the 3 Working Group reports: www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/late... @ipcc.bsky.social @wflamb.bsky.social
1183
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Martin Gauch @gauchm.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Back by popular demand: At #EGU26 we'll organize another BUGS session: Blunders, Unexpected Glitches, and Surprises! Submit abstracts on ideas that seemed great but didn't work, errors and bugs that led to new insights (or funny stories), or any other unexpected results. www.egu26.eu/session/56997
1138
Brian Groenke @bgroenke.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
CO making me proud ♥️⛰️
010
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
“We need to start, now, to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil-fuels, by at least 5% per year. This must happen in order to have a chance to avoid unmanageable & extremely costly climate impacts affecting all people in the world.” PIKs J. Rockström @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Cop30: Scientists warn countries must act decisively to protect people and life or risk ‘suffering for billions’ – as it happened
As president Lula tries to find common ground between negotiating countries, planetary scientists say emissions must be urgently cut
531600648
Reposted by Brian Groenke
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 06/10/2025
Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says
theguardian.com
Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says
Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions The failure of carbon offsets to cut planet-heating pollution is “not due to a few bad apples”, a review paper has found, but down to deep-seated systemic problems that incremental change will not solve. Research over two decades has found “intractable” problems that have made carbon credits in most big programmes poor quality, according to the study. While the industry and diplomats have made efforts to improve the system, it found much-awaited rules agreed at a UN climate summit last year “did not substantially address the quality problem”. Continue reading...
910251
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Seth Axen 🪓 @sethaxen.com · 03/10/2025
"Matlab is the Visual Basic 6 of technical computing." #HeardAtJuliaCon #JuliaCon #JuliaLang
1122
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
“Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces. Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself.” Leadership, strategy, real action, common sense. #Paris
washingtonpost.com
Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.
Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.
4040721448
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net · 21/07/2025
Breaking News! Code Yikes! Yesterday, Antarctic sea-ice extent reached 4 standard deviations below the 1991-2020 daily mean. The only other years on record where this has happened are 2023 and 2024. In a normal distribution, 4 SD's represents a 1-in-31,600 event. These are not normal times.
814256
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
“It would be a huge mistake to deviate from 1.5.” PIK Director Johan Rockström and other leading scientists spoke to @newyorker.com about the realities of delayed emissions reductions and the dire consequences of giving up hope. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
newyorker.com
Is There Still Time to Be Hopeful About the Climate?
Scientists have long insisted that we can and must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees—and some still do, even as that grim milestone nears.
01913
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
"Auch ohne Klimawandel gibt es Extreme. Aber in einer Welt mit #Klimawandel häufen sich diese Extreme und das ist der Punkt", so PIK-Meteorologe Peter Hoffmann. Im Gespräch mit rbb24 spricht er über den Potsdamer Dürre-Rekord, Ursache & Folgen der Extreme: ➡️ www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZD...
0168
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Michael E. Mann @michaelemann.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
This plot from NYTimes is getting a lot of play today. Let me just note that calculating a 15 year trend ending w/ an El Nino-boosted interval is the sort of thing that would make Dick Lindzen blush (excerpt from "The Hockey Stick & the Climate Wars" (www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-hockey...)
plot from New York Times articleexcerpt from "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars": One of the more egregious media distortions started with a BBC
interview of Phil Jones in mid-February 2010. Th e BBC queried Jones,
“Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically
signifi cant global warming?” Th is was a trap planted by climate
change deniers. 65 Its origins probably lay in an e-mail from Richard
Lindzen coaching climate change denier Anthony Watts on how to
cherry-pick starting dates to get the desired trend. 66 From the temperature
graphic shown earlier in this chapter, it is clear that the globe had
warmed since 1995. But the precise amount depended on the particular
temperature compilation, with Jones’s (CRU) record showing the least
net warming. As discussed in chapter 12, establishing signifi cance of
trends over short periods of time is diffi cult. Signifi cance depends on
how large the net trend over the time interval analyzed is by comparison
to the amplitude of the year-to-year fl uctuations (from things like El Niño, volcanoes, etc.). For increasingly short time intervals, the former
becomes increasingly small compared to the latter, and any trend,
accordingly, becomes decreasingly signifi cant. Th is was especially true
if one just happened to choose 1995 as the starting year.
You might call this episode “the cherry-pick heard ’round the world.”
Th e goal was to get Jones on record agreeing that the statement was
technically true—which he did—while ignoring the caveats and qualifi -
cations he raised 67 about how meaningless it is to talk about trends over
short periods of time, the curiously selective use of a 1995 starting date,
and the fact that the CRU record was the one that showed the least
warming of the three major records. All too predictably, contrarian
media outlets immediately trumpeted news of Jones’s response with
outlandish characterizations such as “World May Not Be Warming, Say
Scientists,” courtesy of the Times (the author, once again, b…
1325771
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Sustainable development needs strong climate protection, says PIK scientist Jessica Strefler at #SB62. Current policies still lead to costly damages, esp. in poorer countries. Stronger emission cuts are crucial & can help to reduce inequality. More info: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
0127
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 12/06/2025
Good Science xkcd.com/3101/
5-panel comic. (1) [teacher with long hair next to whiteboard] TEACHER: I’m supposed to give you the tools to do good science. (2) [teacher addressing students] But what *are* those tools? Methodology is hard and there are so many ways to get incorrect results. What is the magic ingredient that makes for good science? (3) TEACHER: To figure it out, I ran a regression with all the factors people say are important: [embedded list in sub-panel, cut off at end] Outcome variable: correct scientific results. Predictors: collaboration; skepticism of others’ claims; questioning your own beliefs; trying to falsify hypotheses; checking citations; statistical rigor; blinded analysis; financial disclosure; open data (4) TEACHER: The regression says two ingredients are the most crucial: 1) genuine curiosity about the answer to a question, and 2) ammonium hydroxide. (5) STUDENT: Wait, why did *ammonia* score so high? How did it even get on the list? LONG HAIR: ...And now you’re doing good science!
243504625
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Europe's economic woes have nothing to do with #ClimatePolicy, says PIK Director Ottmar #Edenhofer in an interview with @ftm.eu. “Climate damage is going to be a fundamental threat to our #Economy and prosperity.” www.ftm.eu/articles/ott... (€)
ftm.eu
Europe's economic woes have nothing to do with climate policy, says ex-Merkel advisor
European industry is wrong to blame the Green Deal for its own failures, according to Ottmar Edenhofer, a leading climate economist. To remain economically competitive, the EU must stick to its ambiti...
0127
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Lily-belle Sweet @lilybellesweet.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Looked at the report to see how they evaluated model performance and what a surprise - the reported accuracy metrics are based on randomly sampled datapoints. Spatial data is not i.i.d., and model evaluation is the hardest part of any ML project (but not as fun as trying a dozen model architectures)
4197
Reposted by Brian Groenke
International Cryosphere Climate Initiative @iccinet.org · 20/05/2025
Scientists show that +1.5 °C is far too warm for Earth's ice sheets and will result in several metres of sea-level rise over the coming centuries, extensive loss and damage to coastal populations and will challenge the implementation of adaptation measures www.nature.com/articles/s43...
nature.com
Warming of +1.5 °C is too high for polar ice sheets - Communications Earth & Environment
Warming of +1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is too high for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and even the current climate forcing of +1.2 °C is likely to lead to several meters of sea-level ...
02716
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Adrien Damseaux @adriendams.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
New article about AI/LLMs capabilities to summarised scientific research TL;DR: It's bad, and the new ones are performing worse
royalsocietypublishing.org
Generalization bias in large language model summarization of scientific research | Royal Society Open Science
Artificial intelligence chatbots driven by large language models (LLMs) have the potential to increase public science literacy and support scientific research, as they can quickly summarize complex sc...
132
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 06/05/2025
This is horrible. I don't even know what to say. Some of our most key polar data. "As a result, the level of services for affected products below will be reduced to Basic—meaning they will remain accessible but may not be actively maintained, updated, or fully supported." nsidc.org/data/user-re...
Effective May 5, 2025, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will decommission its snow and ice data products from the Coasts, Oceans, and Geophysics Science Division (COGS). As a result, the level of services for affected products below will be reduced to Basic—meaning they will remain accessible but may not be actively maintained, updated, or fully supported. This includes Sea Ice Index, Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS) Data Products, Glacier Photograph Collection, U.S. National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format Gridded Monthly Sea Ice Extent and Concentration, 1850 Onward World Glacier Inventory. If you rely on these products in your work, research, education, or planning, we invite you to share your story at nsidc@nsidc.org. Your input can help us demonstrate the importance of these data sets and advocate for future support.
491335685
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Lily-belle Sweet @lilybellesweet.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
If you, like us, think that these kinds of community activity are needed, we warmly invite you to get involved in AgML. So far, we've created benchmark datasets, organised a workshop, Kaggle competition and there's so much more we'd like to do - join our mailing list: mail.agml.org/mailman/list...
mail.agml.org
AgML Info Page
075
Reposted by Brian Groenke
The Onion @theonion.com · 11/03/2025
“If everything goes right, none of you will be able to afford food, housing, or retirement ever again.” theonion.com/trump-says-r...
theonion.com
Trump Says Recession Unfortunate But Necessary Step To Get To Depression
WASHINGTON—Warning that Americans should brace themselves for an economic “period of transition,” President Donald Trump told reporters Monday that a recession would be an unfortunate but necessary st...
13580681379
Reposted by Brian Groenke
adamplatform.bsky.social @adamplatform.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Impressive red #Arctic in February with temperatures around 20°C above average, high enough for sea ice to melt. In #Europe the average temperature for February was 0.40°C above the reference period according to the #Copernicus #Climate Change Service (C3S). #climateemergency @eumetsat.int
45126
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
I am 100% serious when I say that one of the most important skills for a researcher is an exceptional tolerance for feeling stupid. As a researcher, you really have to lean into feeling stupid.
517019
Reposted by Brian Groenke
PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
The ocean is the final victim of multiple planetary crises, suffering from nutrient pollution, excess heat, rising CO₂, explains PIKs Johan Rockström. "This has to be turned around. The ocean will ultimately determine whether we secure a livable future for humanity." www.weforum.org/videos/earth...
weforum.org
Earth has crossed 6 of 9 dangerous planetary boundaries, says this leading climate scientist
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape glob...
67634
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Valérie Masson-Delmotte @valmasdel.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
What is happening now is that Kate Calvin, NASA Chief Scientist and Senior Climate Advisor, and Co-Chair of the IPCC WGIII report, was not allowed to attend the IPCC 62 plenary, where the outline of the AR7 Working Group reports is scheduled to be approved. edition.cnn.com/2025/02/21/c... 4/...
edition.cnn.com
Trump bars federal scientists from working on pivotal global climate report | CNN
The Trump administration told US government scientists working on a vital global climate report to stop their work – the president’s latest move to withdraw the US from global climate action and resea...
16346
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Michael E. Mann @michaelemann.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Scientists sound alarm after collecting unprecedented data from world's oceans: 'The broken records ... have become a broken record' by Leslie Sattler for The Cool Down. Read more here: www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/war...
thecooldown.com
Scientists sound alarm after collecting unprecedented data from world's oceans: 'The broken records ... have become a broken record'
The warmest ocean temperatures in human history were recorded last year, highlighting the concerning issue of warming oceans.
15304134
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Emanuele Bevacqua @bevacquae.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
In Nature Climate Change, we show that a year above 1.5 °C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20-year period that will reach the Paris Agreement limit. @natclimchange.bsky.social
nature.com
A year above 1.5 °C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20-year period that will reach the Paris Agreement limit - Nature Climate Change
What a first year with temperature 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial baseline implies for long-term temperature goals is unclear. Here the authors show that such a first year above the baseline is highl...
414776
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
I hate what deep learning has done to the word "inference". Now we are forced to write sentences in our papers like "approximate inference at inference time"—I'm all for nonsense Dr Seuss language, but not in a scientific paper!
1374
Reposted by Brian Groenke
sbi - Simulation-based inference @sbi-devs.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
🚀 Join the 4th SBI Hackathon! 🚀 The last SBI hackathon was a fantastic milestone in forming a collaborative open-source community around SBI. Be part of it this year as we build on that momentum! 📅 March 17–21, 2025 📍 Tübingen, Germany or remote 👉 Details: github.com/sbi-dev/sbi/... More Info:🧵👇
1205
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Guillaume Dalle @gdalle.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
"2. 'The Program' refers to the medley of source code, shell scripts, executables, objects, libraries and build files supplied to You [...] 3. 'You' refers to the person or persons brave and daft enough to use the Program. 4. 'The Documentation' refers to the Program." Finally a serious license
matt.might.net
The CRAPL: An academic-strength open source license
1219
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Umberto Picchini @upicchini.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
"Questionable practices in machine learning" arxiv.org/pdf/2407.12220
4489
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Andreas Kirsch @blackhc.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Ever wondered why presenting more facts can sometimes *worsen* disagreements, even among rational people? 🤔 It turns out, Bayesian reasoning has some surprising answers - no cognitive biases needed! Let's explore this fascinating paradox quickly ☺️
824283
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Adrien Damseaux @adriendams.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
New report from @wwattribution.bsky.social reveals that climate change added 120+ days of dangerous heat in many equatorial countries Those contribute almost nothing to CC, yet bear its worst impacts. It's indefensible for wealthier nations like us to continue inflicting this 🔗 shorturl.at/W4vPy
spiral.imperial.ac.uk
012
Reposted by Brian Groenke
Robert Aboukhalil @robert.bio · 04/12/2024
“We don’t value software, data, and methods in the same way we value papers, even though those resources empower millions of scientists” 💯 www.statnews.com/sponsor/2024...
statnews.com
New report highlights the scientific impact of open source software
Two of the scientists who won this year’s Nobel Prize for cracking the code of proteins’ intricate structures relied, in part, on a series of computing
316172