HEPEX

Following my previous posts, I have been (falsely) accused of being presumptuous and over-confident in my predictions. So, this time, I have decided to stop speculating and to talk about something everybody in this HEPEX community should be placing an early bet on: next year’s Chaoscar best picture award frontrunner, the “Handfilm of HEPS”. Which film could have better chances for the most prestigious award in Earth Sciences? Experts have weighed in on which film will win the best picture…

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Contributed by Professor Flora Poil Soon-to-be-published research funded by the international Hits-Sia-Ekoj research programme has shown that hydrological models can be significantly improved by using the link between river name and hydrological behaviour. Professor Poil explains: “Anecdotally, the name of a river is often determined by its behaviour; a male river is more often turbulent, a female river more often stable. We wanted to investigate this link further.” All across our planet our watercourses have been assigned gender by our…

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Posted on April 1, 2017 by Dr Professor McFools The general belief until recently has been that hydrology is a very young discipline — i. e. Homo Hydro is a quite young scientific species — but it is time to debunk this myth. Scientists from the Grand Old Duke University revealed in this issue of Environment (impact factor: highish) that they had found fossils believed to be from a previously unknown early hydrological model ancestor — one that could have…

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Contributed by Dr. Meteo McFool and his meteorological accomplices For too long, we have tolerated so called Hydrologists claiming to use their voodoo magic to make enhanced forecasts or claim they know anything about the water cycle. These so-called ‘scientists’, ‘engineers’ and ‘experts’ (seriously?) are dangerous as they talk to the public, decision makers and politicians, pretending to possess some esoteric knowledge about extreme events such as floods or droughts — without acknowledging that all their wisdom comes from the…

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Contributed by Dr. McFools Inspired by the recent decision in a State of Florida agency to discourage its public employees from using the term ‘climate change’, I propose that HEPEX should officially ban its members from using non-actionable and confusing words like ‘probabilistic’, ‘uncertain’, and ‘unreliable’ in any official communication. This will ensure that the HEPEX activities are seen as decisive and taken seriously, and prevent members from losing even more scientific credibility. I propose a simple style guideline to…

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