Perspectives
Living on the Real World
Reflections on oral history in the geosciences (with a NOAA/AMS terroir). Part 1.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear: Full many a flow’r is...
Living on the Real World
Fire and Ice: a forecast for the end of the world – and sometimes, for the same-day’s national weather.
Leave it to the poet Robert Frost, writing more than a century ago, to capture in 9 short lines and...

Living on the Real World
The Indonesia tsunami of December 26, 2004
On this day, twenty years ago, Indonesia (and much of southeast Asia) experienced a catastrophic tsunami. The physical impacts extended...
Living on the Real World
Community-level stress tests (with a nudge from AI).
“Civilization exists under geological consent – subject to change without notice.” – attributed (sometimes) to Will Durant. “If you are...
Living on the Real World
Salient differences between aviation safety and community resilience.
The previous LOTRW post left this question hanging: Why, in the aftermath of natural disasters, do we simply rebuild as...
Living on the Real World
We manage other risks. Why do natural disasters pose a special challenge?
On this real world, natural threats and hazards – cycles of flood and drought; hurricanes and winter storms; earthquakes, tsunamis,...
Living on the Real World
After Hurricane Milton, whither Florida? (And the other 49 of these United States?)
Start with some context. Sea level rise is forecast to shrink the land area of Florida by some 1-10% by...
Living on the Real World
John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Hurricane Milton is writing a sequel (“take 1.”).
Yesterday’s LOTRW post is reproduced here verbatim, but in its original form — before the ChatGPT transformation of certain sections...
Living on the Real World
John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Hurricane Milton is writing a sequel.
The great English poet John Milton (1608-1674) is most famous for his epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained[1]. To...
Living on the Real World
Even as Helene’s high waters and media attention recede, the losses deepen.
As of this writing, it’s been two weeks since Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend area of the...