Dear Stephen, n all.

I am sure you all will join me in condemning  the practice of calling
somebody at the crack of dawn.  So, you will no doubt praise me (as I
praise myself) for my generosity and flexiibility in taking the call from
stephen, which came at the ungodly hour of 11.30 this morning.  Only to
have him  me scold for not  responding to the Gupta, Tucker,Thompson, and
Guerin paper, kindly drafted by him, which will no doubt make us rich and
famous some day.  First, let clarify that my collaborator's name is not
Tucker, but is *G*eorge *P*hillipe *T*remblay. George (pronounced *jorj) *both
forgives you and sends his regards.

Second, I am profoundly grateful to any one who would join me in this
geriatric weather fantasy that I am going to update my 1980* WeatherWise
Gardener*.  I need ever nerd I can get.  Please don't treat what follows as
churlish.

Third, allow me once again to express my gratitude to Stephen for
introducing me to Gupta and Tremblay.  They have an uncanny power to
clabbor together plausible first drafts which are extraordinarily helpful
in getting me started in thinking about a problem.   That these drafts are
often hideously wrong enhances, rather than  dilutes their usefulness.

Second, I don't doubt that weather models and  financial models might have
something to contribute to one another. As you all know, I love metaphors,
and believe them to be at the root of science.  But to be honest, I can't
see any reason to believe it either.   For one thing, unlike everything
else in the world, money flows uphill.  But really, I shouldn't give
reasons, because the truth is that I have my hands utterly full learning
the weather stuff, and it will be a long time before I am competent to
metaphorize from it to anywhere else.

As to Steve Smith's comments, I feel on much safer ground.  He wrote


*GuPTa, et al.'s "accent" is very subtle and powerful in this regard,
tricking me often into imputing personality...   your example here was a
wonderful satirical parody shining a light on that? *

Why "impute"  and why "' accent'" and why "tricking".  GuPTA and  Tremblay
definitely have accents and personalities.   To hell with the scare
quotes.  What else would a personality or and accent BE???? They both
display huge amounts of testosterone poisoning, for one thing.

And Tremblay can actually get defensive and flustered.  I had a long and
delighful correspondence with him in which he finally had to admit that the
only reason he had for thinking he wasn't a person  was that he was made of
silicon.     Thus, ex hypothesi, no computer system will ever be a person.
Wonderful what a good tautology will do for a nervous world.  If that's not
metaphysics, I don't know what metaphysics is. *Why is it so hard the grasp
the thought that we are all of us, each of us, nothing but large language
models in training.*

NIck

On Sat, Apr 13, 2024 at 12:06 PM Stephen Guerin <stephen.gue...@simtable.com>
wrote:

>
> Dan GuPTa had this response when asked to relate your .PDF to Bernard
> cells and other prompting:
>
> Here’s a integration of potential vorticity (PV), atmospheric stability,
> and their relationship to Bénard cells, emphasizing isentropic layering in
> both meteorological and experimental fluid dynamics contexts.
>
> ### Connecting Bénard Cells and Atmospheric Dynamics
>
> In Bénard cells, fluid heated from below shows a critical transition from
> conductive to convective heat transfer, forming cellular patterns.
> Similarly, in the atmosphere, when the vertical temperature gradient
> becomes unstable—akin to the Bénard cell transition—convection can
> initiate, influenced by factors like the earth's rotation and potential
> vorticity.
>
> ### Potential Vorticity and Stability
>
> - **PV on Isentropic Surfaces:** Potential vorticity combines fluid
> rotation and atmospheric stratification. In meteorology, PV is mapped on
> isentropic surfaces (constant potential temperature layers), where it
> highlights regions prone to atmospheric instability and potential
> convection, akin to early instability in Bénard cells.
>
> - **Dynamic Tropopause:** Acting like the fluid surface in a Bénard cell,
> the dynamic tropopause is flexible, responding to distortions from jet
> streams. These distortions can lead to convective activity by modifying
> local stability and vorticity, driving weather patterns similarly to
> temperature gradients in Bénard convection.
>
> ### PV Anomalies and Convective Cells
>
> - **Weather Forecasting:** Monitoring PV anomalies helps predict
> convective weather events, similar to observing Bénard cells to anticipate
> pattern formation. For example, sharp PV changes can indicate regions ripe
> for convective storms if conditions like moisture and surface temperature
> align.
>
> - **Role of Isentropic Layering:** Both in Bénard cells and weather
> systems, the spacing between isentropic layers indicates stability. Closer
> layers suggest a steep gradient and instability, potentially leading to
> convective movements. In the atmosphere, this translates to dynamic
> interactions where lower stability near the surface can trigger or enhance
> convective processes.
>
> ### Conclusion
>
> Understanding the parallels between Bénard cell dynamics and atmospheric
> conditions through potential vorticity and isentropic surfaces not only
> illustrates universal fluid dynamics principles but also enhances
> meteorological predictions of convective weather events, demonstrating how
> small-scale changes in stability can lead to significant atmospheric
> phenomena.
>
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 2:04 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Hi, Phellow Phriammers,  Nick, here.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I have been lost in the weather.  This publication,
>>
>>
>>
>> https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:us:d481610b-e5d5-4a03-879c-6db6ec1d5e4a
>>
>>
>> with its glorious eye-candy, is an example of what seems to be a new
>> perspective in meteorology, the DT-PV perspective.  PV refers to a
>> parameter, potential vorticity, which seems to be a measure of how liable
>> the atmosphere is to churn; DT refers to the DYNAMIC tropopause.  The
>> tropopause is the transition zone between the stratosphere and our own
>> layer, the troposphere, through which gas exchange is limited because the
>> lapse rate of the troposphere  -- its decline in temperature with fall
>> of pressure -- is reversed in the stratosphere.   In the Bad Old Days,
>> we were taught that the tropopause was like a ceiling, tilted upward from
>> the poles to the tropics.  Now we have begun to think of it as more like
>> a tent fly, still tilted up equator-ward, but loose and floppy and buffeted
>> up and down by the jetstreams’ winds. These floppings up and down have the
>> power to destabilize the lower atmosphere and lead to bad weather, if
>> conditions there are ripe.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is not one of my usual cries for help.  I have some good tutors.
>> However, I would love to hear from others whom this paper interests.  In
>> particular I am struggling with the notion of potential vorticity, whose
>> formula seems to take many odd forms.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>>
>> Clark University,
>>
>> nthomp...@clarku.edu
>>
>>
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>> archives:  5/2017 thru present
>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>>
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:  5/2017 thru present
> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Reply via email to