statistical aspects of climate change [discuss]

As part of its annual conference in Aberdeen, Scotland, the RSS is organising a discussion meeting on two papers presented on Wednesday 14 September 2022, 5.00PM – 7.00PM (GMT+1), with free on-line registration.

Two papers will be presented:

‘Assessing present and future risk of water damage using building attributes, meteorology, and topography’ by Heinrich-Mertsching et al.​
‘The importance of context in extreme value analysis with application to extreme temperatures in the USA and Greenland’ by Clarkson et al.​

“The Discussion Meeting at this year’s RSS conference in Aberdeen will feature two papers on the Statistical Aspects of Climate Change. The Discussion Meetings Committee chose this topic area motivated by the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) held in Glasgow last year and because climate changes and the environment is one of the RSS’s six current campaigning priorities for 2022.

You are welcome to listen to the speakers and join in the discussion of the papers which follows the presentations. All the proceedings will be published in a forthcoming issue of Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C (Applied Statistics) .”

Dr Shirley Coleman, Chair and Honorary Officer for Discussion Meetings

the kingfisher and the heron [jatp]

going on a bear [and a whale] hunt

Among many and diverse outdoor activities during our vacations on Vancouver Island, a rather unique trip was to go kayaking near Tofino to try to watch black bears. In a group of three sea kayaks, at dusk, with a fantastic guide. Bears foraging for crabs on the shore at low tide are not unusual but, as it happened, we were quite lucky to spot five different bears over the two hours we paddle along the fjord, including a big one standing on its back legs to catch berries. From a few meters away, this was an incredible sight! [About the title: We’re going on a bear hunt is a classic of children books.]
We were less lucky when whaling out at sea, only spotting a blow on the trip, even though we spotted many seals and a few sea otters. The most exhilarating wildlife experience of the Van trip was however swimming with seals on the northern coast of the island, where on several days one or two seals came to check on me while I was swimming in the ocean in the early morning. (Managing to avoid cold shock and hypothermia by only staying less than 20 minutes in the 17⁰ water.)

impressions soleil couchant [jatp]

the ocean at the end of the lane [book review]

While in Vancouver, waiting for a friend at the Waterfront ferry station, we entered the Simon Fraser University bookshop across the street. This was a most disconcerting experience in that the bookstore contained essentially no book! Just a tiny bookshelf with local authors and another one with a medley of genres. Including Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Which I bought against my better judgement as I had tried to read American Dogs years ago and failed. (But liked very much Neverwhere, again a chance occurrence on a bookstore shelf!) As I started reading the book on the ferry to Vancouver Island, hence on the Pacific Ocean!, I first thought this was about the author’s childhood in rural Sussex, with no other friends than his books, finding some ways to relate to the story of a modest household in the early 60’s, only to be interrupted by three whales swimming along the ferry route. The cheek of them! When I picked up the short novel later in Tofino (with Tonkin Beach above), reality started to unravel (in the book!) and horror to creep in (!). Without getting into spoilers, the  other world or old country starts appearing to the narrator, a seven year old, with about everything taking another and sinister meaning. And no-one else in his household paying any attention to his warnings. What I really enjoy in the book is the sheer ambiguity of the tale, where one cannot be sure this is pure fantasy made up by a lonely seven year old who strongly dislikes a new nanny and is impacted by his parents’ relationship, or an opening into that alternate reality and its dangers that he and only he is able to enter. The book never concludes and this is a strength of the story. Which works for both adult and children readers. It also reminded me of Miyazaki’s Chihiro Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し), in that the supernatural beings here and there are neither evil nor good but simply utterly alien. (This fantastic² movie is considered by my daughter as the most traumatic one she ever saw as a child!) Concluding about the book, this was a very good read, somewhat on the light side although full of forking paths.