iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Mike Talbot

KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Hydrology Paper of the Day @jdkirkham.bsky.social on why geoengineering for climate change is not a good idea for polar hydrological systems: changes to solar radiation, ice melt and ice thickness will not be effective, and ocean current engineering will adversely affect sensitive environments.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 05/10/2026

New blog post: running R and Python together on an HPC compute node with Positron, including the setup and the snags. Check it out if you routinely work in both languages (regardless of whether you use HPCs or not). miketalbot.io/blog/posts/2...

miketalbot.io

R and Python and the Holy Grail – Mike Talbot

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Frederik Kratzert @kratzert.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Excited to announce Groundsource - an open-source dataset of historic flood events! This has easily been one of the coolest projects I've worked on recently! Thread 🧵 for details and all relevant links. 1/n

A worldmap of the spatial distribution of extracted flood events in the Groundsource dataset. The map displays the total number of flood events extracted by the LLM-based pipeline aggregated per grid cell. The data are visualized using a Robinson projection, with event counts represented by a logarithmic color scale. Red points indicate the spatial centroids of reference flood events from the GDACS database.

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KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Hydrology Paper of the Day @kratzert.bsky.social on a novel dataset of flooding events: how large language models can obtain events from news articles; a processing pipeline associated with geocoding; filtering and validation; biases and spatial recall; and understanding correlations.

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Reposted by Mike Talbot

KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Hydrology Paper of the Day @webbhydrology.bsky.social on how snow hydrological processes are affected by wildfire: AmeriFlux sites and calculations of PET in context of the water balance; a conceptual model including wind and LAI; changes to sublimation; and moderate multi-year process modifications

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KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Hydrology Paper of the Day @mollystroud.bsky.social @geoallen.bsky.social on how Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) remote sensing data products can be utilized for an understanding of the geomorphology of rivers and sediment transport: observing knickpoints and estimating shear stress.

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KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Hydrology Paper of the Day @michaljenicek.bsky.social @jansei.bsky.social on understanding how rain-on-snow events are influenced by climatic drivers in 93 European catchments: modelling utilized to explore variability; spatial distribution over elevation; and a climatic sensitivity analysis.

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KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Hydrology Paper of the Day @rosswoodskiwi.bsky.social on grouping catchments by snow hydrology, hydroclimatology and water balances: a geography of locations and a conceptual model framework; four periods of a hydrological year explored over spatial landscapes; and mapping seasonality and anomalies.

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KinarNicholas.bsky.social @kinarnicholas.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Hydrology Paper of the Day @cw3escripps.bsky.social on how Long Short-Term Memory models can improve streamflow: the need to consider time scales for integration of SWE and Q; the veracity of different observations at daily and monthly integrations; and a better understanding of spatial patterns.

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Blair Fix @blairfix.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

In a 2024 paper criticizing the 'billion-dollar-disasters' database, Roger Pielke Jr. published analysis that is best described as a Russian-doll of errors. Here's my in-depth take down of his appallingly bad work. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/10/26/r...

economicsfromthetopdown.com

Roger Pielke Jr.’s Appallingly Bad Analysis of Billion Dollar Disasters – Economics from the Top Down

In a recent paper called Scientific integrity and U.S. “Billion Dollar Disasters”, Roger Pielke Jr. published a chart that's so bad I've devoted a whole essay to debunking it.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 04/09/2025

By the way, I'd be really interested to see this same calculation but on a per-unit-area basis. This might show how data centers have the potential to create very acute problems for specific water resources...

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 23/08/2025

There are areas in the world (not the Great Lakes region) that are already really struggling with water availability due to the combination of climate change and population growth (and some geopolitics as well), and putting data centers there is really irresponsible.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 23/08/2025

However, I feel like the issue posed by data centers is not really best viewed in the global context, but rather in the local one. It's where they're being built - in areaS that are already water stressed - that's the problem.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 23/08/2025

You're on the right track. The "consumptive water use" of agriculture, as we call it, can be quite high, and approaches 100% of withdrawals in arid areas. We consistently undervalue our water across all industries.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 12/08/2025

From December of last year

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Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

I think this is correct. A PhD is not a signal of innate intelligence, but rather of perseverance and grit in the pursuit of knowledge. Conflating LLMs with PhDs is a category error.

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Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Bisexual of the Blade (Alt-text or DIE) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 09/08/2025

Something that I have been thinking about with attribution of "PhD level intelligence" or "PhD level expertise" to a machine is that it reflects an increasing trend among these AI bros and their sycophants to want the products of highly skilled training without actually doing any of the work.

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Reposted by Mike Talbot

Kanak Kanti Kar @kanakkantikar.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

A new co-authored research paper on "Rain-on-snow (ROS) based flooding" got published recently. We showed how ROS events contribute to actual flooding and identified the causal structure leading to ROS floods in different regions of the globe. Paper link: doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 10/07/2025

Hydrologists face an incredibly difficult task: communicating statistics about streamflow that defy both intuition and the lived memory of a community. But helping people understand that risk (even when it's invisible) might be our most important job.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 10/07/2025

Properly managing the floodplain is a societal good, not an example of government overreach. The single most effective way to keep people out of the way of a flood is to keep them out of the floodplain.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 10/07/2025

There are many factors involved in making the recent Texas flood so deadly, but one I haven't seen much in the discussion is land use deregulation. This is the kind of thing we can expect to happen in a world where we allow businesses to do whatever they want, wherever they want.

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Edward Nirenberg @enirenberg.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

I wish people would stop describing things that are indisputably provable as a matter of fact as "controversial." People not liking a fact doesn't mean the fact is controversial. Reality is not malleable around our beliefs and it shouldn't be. We need to stop acting like it is.

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I just saw a good example of what I was talking about with chatgpt being a crackpot generating machine. A guy had started Wheeler's Spacetime Physics, and had a problem on page 2. Wheeler expressed a square root as a power of 1/2. √a = a^1/2. This is basic algebra, not physics.

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Brad Proctor @bdproctor.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

I just have to say, as a historian of the Reconstruction-era Klan, that masked paramilitaries are very bad and masked vigilantes are even worse and there are causal links between the two and none of this is good for democracy.

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holly jean buck @hollyjeanbuck.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Is “abundance” basically “development” with a glow-up? What does it mean to talk about development when the Trump administration is basically on a project of reversing development? and how should we be talking about “development” in 2025, anyway? new article: www.compactmag.com/article/the-...

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Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on. slate.com/technology/2...

slate.com

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 18/06/2025

The amount of AI slop on LinkedIn is so unreal, you can now read a post written by AI featuring a misleading photo created by AI, commented on by hundreds of users automating their online presence with AI tools. What could be more devoid of real value?

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 19/02/2025

The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame. The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 21/01/2025

It makes my day when I get an aggressive bus driver who owns the road. Show those cars who's boss, m'man.

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Frederik Kratzert @kratzert.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Jonathan Frame is looking for PhD students and a PostDoc at his new group at UoA. If you want to work at the intersection of Earth Sciences / Hydrology and Deep Learning or also modeling in more general, go checkout the postings at dualearth.github.io/opportunitie... Reposts appreciated.

dualearth.github.io

Opportunities - DualEarth

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 06/01/2025

The units you choose to use when presenting your results are even more important than you might think. Here I use the acre-foot as a case study in why it's worth giving it some extra consideration. miketalbot.io/posts/2024-1...

miketalbot.io

In Defense of the Acre-Foot

Let me start by asking a simple question: is it easier for you to visualize, in your mind’s eye, a million gallons of water or an Olympic swimming pool? Or for you cynics out there: is it easier to vi...

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 02/01/2025

I can see that. You probably also go down a lot more dead ends (reminds me of how I learned networking by building a server, and all the time I spent recovering from mistakes or following bad Reddit advice)

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 02/01/2025

I'll gladly share any resources I come across 😎

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 02/01/2025

I can't say for sure that this will work since I haven't tried yet, but my plan for doing this myself is to follow the same logic I used to teach myself to code: find a project and grind through it, one step at a time. I want to build components of a weather station...

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 01/01/2025

I started running again in 2024 for the first time in 9 years. I can definitely improve upon this in 2025, but it just feels good to be back at it.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 26/12/2024

All I want for Christmas is a fully automated weather station with a heated weighing gage and an Alter shield. Is that so much to ask for?

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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Nothing quite so clearly describes corrupt capitalism as the idea that the companies responsible for disastrous #climate disruption are now trying to profit from technologies they claim will solve it. The New Climate Gold Rush: Scrubbing Carbon From the Sky www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/c...

nytimes.com

Removing Carbon From the Sky Could Be the Next Climate Gold Rush

Investors are betting that they can make a dent in global warming, and healthy profits, with companies that alter the atmosphere.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 17/12/2024

I took exactly one selfie at #AGU24 and it was with an F-1 rocket engine. My 12-year-old self would be quite happy.

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 15/12/2024

There's a reason my dogs were barking on Friday after leaving #AGU24

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Celeste Labedz @celestelabedz.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

If anyone is looking for someone to block, I was cruising the #AGU24 feed and found that grifter who uses ChatGPT to write a paid-subscription climate denial newsletter with fake citations. Unsurprisingly, guys peddling science denial also complain when scientists want to be treated with respect:

Screencap of post from drwielicki.bsky.social reading "Is this science or a corporate HR workshop? 'Weaving Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility into the Fabric of Polar and Alpine Sciences' - because nothing says cutting-edge research like systemic barriers and ripple effects. How did we get here? #AGU24 #AGU2024" with a screencap of a session with that title on the AGU program website

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Mike Talbot @miketalbot.io · 12/12/2024

Come see me at my poster Friday morning

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 12/12/2024

As a lifelong peacenik my position is always where there is violence you must search for the seeds of the violence. Handwringing about the death of a CEO and public reaction to it doesn’t confront the extreme violence of that CEO and his company or the American healthcare system.

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Margaret Zimmer @margaretzimmer.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

I’m recruiting graduate students and a postdoc to work on a range of hydrology topics- from water quality in agricultural landscapes to critical zone process (a)synchrony! Interested? Let’s chat at #AGU24!!!

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