Month: December 2023

Novo Nordisk…

The foundation bigger than Wellcome and Gates that’s funding our new research project….

There are 2 good pieces in the Financial Times currently about the Novo Nordisk Foundation. I found both quite illuminating because I didn’t actually know much about them, even though we recently got a large grant from them to work on sea level rise and ice sheets.

The first piece gives an overview of the Foundation itself. Among other nuggets, I learnt they own 77% of shares in Novo Nordisk, which effectively insulates the pharmaceutical company from hostile takeovers.

The second is a piece on the FT Person of the Year: Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, their CEO.

I’m sharing then both here but each link can only be opened 3 times. If and when I work out the internet archive, I will see if I can update them.

As a TL;DR, and for those not really into this kind of thing, Novo Nordisk have long been large suppliers of insulin for diabetes patients. However, some canny investment and a lot of hard work has resulted in the development of 2 similar drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy, that not only fight diabetes but also lead to significant weight loss, with associated health benefits like reductions in heart attacks. These are, to some extent the modern equivalent of the philosopher’s stone and Novo Nordisk is now, by market capitalisation at least, Europe’s most valuable company…

The huge size of Novo Nordisk could be a problem for Denmark – our Nokia moment perhaps. And the outsize influence the foundation has on science in Denmark has not gone unnoticed either.

On the whole though, I think it’s a positive, especially as the areas they will fund are also under expansion.

Using a commercial company to fund a foundation has a pretty long tradition here in Denmark with most of our biggest companies including Carlsberg, Rockwool, Mærsk and Velux all funding research (and probably other companies too).

So, that’s a quick link to some of the reading I’ve been catching up on over the Christmas and new year’s break. I hope you’re all having a nice break (for those of you on holiday), too!

Merry Christmas from central Copenhagen

Deeply learning global temperature patterns

Another very high quality blogpost from John Kennedy with his usual mix of insight and wit.

This one struck me as especially interesting as I’m also starting to investigate deep learning for regional climate and surface mass balance models. Lots of bear traps for the unwary clearly, but also genuine promise.

Read on and of course, follow!

A preprint has appeared on infilling of global temperature data using “deep learning”. On their tests, it performs better than the Kadow et al. method. That’s quite interesting and new methods for filling the gaps in HadCRUT are always great to see. What’s more exciting, potentially, is that they used the same method to infill […]

Deeply learning global temperature patterns

A cryosphere call to action..

The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative has put together a new petition for scientists to sign. I’m a little sceptical that this kind of “clicktivism” makes much difference, but there are many many lobbyists from polluting industries at the COP28 and rather fewer scientists. And how else to draw attention to what is one of the most visible and urgent effects of climate change?

The petition is aimed at:

” all cryosphere scientists globally; as well as those working on emissions pathways: and those in the social sciences with research on adaptation, loss and damage and health impacts. This includes research and field associates, as well as doctoral students — because you are the future, and will be dealing with the impacts of climate change in the global cryosphere throughout your lives, as well as your professional careers.”

ICCI

The list of signatories so far already includes many rather senior scientists, so take this as a challenge to add your signature if you work in the cryosphere/climate space. It takes only a minute to sign and there are many familiar names on the list.

I’m not sure how else to emphasise the urgency of real action at COP 28.

Small bergy bits in the bay near Ilulissat, with Lego Ice Man for scale (and an important message)

As a coincidence though, and as I posted on mastodon the image below appears in Momentum, a plug-in on my web browser with a new photo every day. Today’s is this beautiful image of the Marmolada glacier in Italy by Vicentiu Solomon.

Marmolada Glacier by Vicentiu Solomon

It’s a gorgeous but very sad picture – this is one of the faster disappearing #glaciers in the world and to hear more about the consequences of cryosphere loss, take a look at the policy brief produced by the PROTECT project on the sea level rise contributions from glaciers and ice sheets. It also contains this eye opening graphic:

A 2 metre rise in sea level is almost inevitable. The uncertainty is on the timing which is somewhere between one century and the next 2 thousand years, depending on where you are in the world, but, more importantly given COP28, how fast fossil fuels are phased out. You can download the whole thing here.

So there you have it. Here’s a reminder of the petition from the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative.