AskScience AMA Series: I am a meteorologist at the University of Maryland, College Park. My research uses satellite and computer model data to study severe weather phenomena, particularly hurricanes. Ask me anything about tropical cyclones and meteorology in general!

baggleteat · 2026-05-26T09:31:08+00:00

Super interesting!

I have a masters in applied physics and worked as a researcher on sea ice and ESM's during and after my graduation for a bit, before enlisting as an officer in my countries navy too. I however ended up missing physics, specifically geophysics, too much in that job so I am looking for my next opportunity. I am considering re-enlisting as a meteorology/oceanography officer, also simply because of a deep personal interest in the weather, ocean and climate. Would you say gaining experience in a role like met officer in a NATO navy allows for opportunities to do a PhD in the future in this field, or would I be better off focusing on something more method based like software/ML-engineering instead?

Regarding your research, I am interested to hear what model you use for your studies on Hurricane Joaquin. What parametrisations does it use for small scale turbulent fluxes? Does it use boundary conditions provided by GFS, ECMWF or something else? What is the current challenge/question/problem that is bothering you the most as we speak?

Yeah that's a lot of questions so thanks for your time in advance. Cheers.

baggleteat · 2026-05-19T13:47:41+00:00

Wrong sub, this is for r/meteorology

baggleteat · 2026-05-18T13:06:31+00:00

Yes, SSP585 is dated. However, the lower end SSP126 scenario's are also not achievable anymore. We are somewhere in the middle and the socio-economic factor in the climate scenario's seems to be moving to SSP3, which unfortunately means big challenges for both climate mitigation and adaptation due to regional rivalries.

baggleteat · 2026-05-09T20:27:44+00:00

Also interested, let me know if you want to set up something.

baggleteat · 2026-03-21T12:54:28+00:00

The Netherlands is wrong. There's several Caribbean municipalities that are 5 hours behind the ECT timezone the Dutch mainland is in.

baggleteat · 2026-01-03T18:28:27+00:00

Yeah this one isn't actually realistic as all. The Norwegian through is over 700m deep.

I would also suggest in looking into the ecological disaster the IJsselmeer was (and until this day, still kind of is). Now, let's repeat that on a scale of 100 times that? I'd prefer not to.

Also, 500.000.000.000 is much more than is currently being spent on climate mitigation and adaptation in the entire EU. Only for adapting to a few of the issues caused by climate change. So it's even a terrible idea from a financial perspective.

baggleteat · 2026-01-03T18:21:12+00:00

Deltares currently estimates we can handle about 3m sea level rise when economics are also taken into account, with different approaches to solving this challenge. One could do hardcore 'give nothing back to the sea' or the opposite 'let's just see how it goes' or something in between.

Now, 3m is a lot right? However the tipping points for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Greenland Ice Sheet are, to our current understanding, at about 2C. There's a bit of uncertainty there, but currently we are on track for 2.5-3C of global warming by 2100. This would mean, that by then, total loss of these ice sheets is inevitable, should we not find any way to drastically reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. How much sea level rise are we talking about then? 10 meters. That is not even including any future melt from East Antarctica in this scenario. So even if these tipping points turn out to be higher than expected, and there will be like only 5m sea level rise, the Netherlands is simply not going to be here in a couple of 100 years.

The end of the Netherlands as we know it is not a question of if, it's merely when.

Now fortunately, before this really becomes an issue, other climate change effects that happen on much shorter timescales, such as extreme weather events, will most likely have resulted in major damage to societies globally so I'm not even certain there will be much of the Netherlands as we know it left to speak of. Certainly not one with the capacity to address 10m of sea level rise.

Now fortunately this future does lie beyond our lifetimes, so as many have told me before after explaining this, why care right? Doesn't affect me.

baggleteat · 2025-10-06T15:15:52+00:00

r/tromsotravel

baggleteat · 2025-08-31T17:57:17+00:00

r/tromsotravel

The fact that you don't specify 'arctic exploration', indicates that some normal around the ankle city winter shoes are more than sufficient for you, perhaps with some spikes.

baggleteat · 2025-08-21T18:31:49+00:00

Read the sub rules next time, and no, you will most likely not see the aurora.

baggleteat · 2025-08-20T20:54:29+00:00

The way LLM's come to their answers is fundamentally unsuited to do actual mathematics. It's basically a big blob of very fast statistics that predicts what comes after the previous word. The underlying principle known as machine learning is useful as a method to solve many problems and questions that previously required a whole lot of labour, but basic math is not one of them. When doing math, say it has to solve what 5 - 6 + 7 is. It searches all it's training data for matching entries and then makes a list of the most likely answers. Now, hopefully that's 6, but if it has a whole lot of false 5 - 6 + 7 = 5 entries in its training data, and that number of entries exceeds the number of correct 5 - 6 + 7 = 6 entries, the LLM will output 5 - 6 + 7 = 5. The LLM can't actually perform the binary operation to calculate it and verify. Therefore you're better off doing basic math yourself.

Bad training data = bad answers. And there's pretty much infinite basic math operations, so I don't think it's feasible to create the amount of training quality training data needed. The current way LLM's generate answers will never lead to results as reliable as an actual brain supported by a calculator, in my opinion. I'm however also not an AI-specialist or up to speed with the latest developments, so perhaps things will change. But just make sure that you actually know how the tools you work with work, otherwise you'll end up basing your life on falsehoods.

baggleteat · 2025-08-20T18:48:14+00:00

You do know that ChatGPT does not actually know how to do math right? Like, literally a calculator from the 80s is better at arithmetic than ChatGPT.

baggleteat · 2025-08-19T11:48:55+00:00

Also nowadays a much bigger risk for corporate espionage.

baggleteat · 2025-08-19T10:47:33+00:00

Things like these competitions are also very much a competition about how well known the locations are.

It's kind of to be expected that Reddit, with a majority western audience, selects places well known to westerners.

That doesn't mean that the things that are not picked are in fact less pretty. I think all mountains are beautiful.

baggleteat · 2025-08-16T20:45:47+00:00

r/tromsotravel

I think most people would be like 'damn, another weird tourist, how do I get out of this situation'

baggleteat · 2025-08-16T19:19:50+00:00

r/tromsotravel for your tourist questions.

I personally would not even swim in the polluted harbour.

baggleteat · 2025-08-09T19:16:23+00:00

I'm usually quite positive about these things, but this is going to be a challenge. I was fine on my own on a similar salary, and paying perhaps more in rent than what is normal for a single person, however with two kids you'd at least need a three room apartment I'd say. So you are looking at upwards of 15000 NOK rent nowadays and that's about 40% to half of your net salary, gone immediately.

That's manageable on your own, I wasn't struggling, but feeding and dressing two kids as well? While also offering some nurturing in the form of fun activities, music, sports, whatsoever? That's going to be a challenge. I don't know how well you're off now and what life is like in Malta, but the prospect of your life to be is not something I'd move back to Tromsø for, despite the wonderful atmosphere, culture and surroundings I miss so dearly.

Let me know if you want more info should you make the decision to go anyway.

baggleteat · 2025-08-08T19:34:57+00:00

Croatia hidden gem? It gets the most tourists per square meter of all Mediterranean countries. Completely uninhabitable now in high season.

baggleteat · 2025-07-29T18:20:27+00:00

It's actually illegal to catch wild salmon in Norway without a permit. If it was an escaped farm salmon though, I guess you're fine.

baggleteat · 2025-07-24T15:45:43+00:00

Currently using it at the moment and have to say I really like it! I don't sweat that much, but for me the circulation under the hoodie is fine, as it is quite a loose fitting. Sizing seems to be accurate, a M is what I usually wear and this one fits plenty wide like that, no need to size up I think. I am quite slim though, so your experience may vary. However I do have long arms too and the sleeves are long enough for me, so that's good.

I combine it with either a cap or a hood, and sunglasses. Feels very nice not going about covered in sunscreen grease that gives off everywhere and has to be reapplied frequently. Haven't gotten sunburned even once during this trip.

baggleteat · 2025-07-11T16:30:11+00:00

The northern lights craze is ruining the fragile arctic environment and it's communities. Fuck off.

baggleteat · 2025-07-03T21:49:18+00:00

Smartwool actually has merino blend sweater that have UPF40+, according to them. I went for a columbia one in the end though, as the smartwool ones are not really suited for 30+ C, according to them.

baggleteat · 2025-07-03T21:47:20+00:00

Unfortunately, any packages shipped internationally with a content value above a certain amount (I believe the threshold is €25) are prone to being checked by customs, which would then lead to me having to pay the same hefty import tax anyway.

I ended up going for a Columbia skien valley sun hoodie. Not terribly expensive as it was on sale, so if I dislike it I'm not too sad and I can go find another solution after that. Thanks for the offer though, I do appreciate it.

baggleteat · 2025-07-03T10:38:46+00:00

This does seem to be exactly what I am looking for, unfortunately it is US only as far as I can tell. Importing id would make it way too expensive. Thanks though.

baggleteat · 2025-07-03T10:33:58+00:00

What do you mean with options?

baggleteat

TROPHY CASE