Nancy Jane Moore

Page 2 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: constructive suggestions regarding how the already remarkable institutional efficiency and societal impact of NCAR could be further enhanced through increased (not decreased) federal support in the years to come. Please note: To ensure the highest level of technical rigor, this response focuses exclusively on the core atmospheric and natural hazard science topics within the author’s primary domain of expertise; for this reason, I have omitted a response to Topic 4 (Space Weather)." NCAR weather modeling and atmospheric observing capabilities a) Management and operations of weather-related observational platforms, modeling and science as a stand-alone activity. The proposed management of weather-related research as a stand-alone activity is a scientifically regressive path that ignores the fundamental physical reality of the Earth system. Modern atmospheric science has demonstrated (largely, it is worth noting, due to groundbreaking researc

Page 3 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: b) Management and operations of weather-related observational platforms, modeling and science as combined with other NSF investments/facilities. The highly specialized nature of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) infrastructure represents an extraordinary value proposition that cannot be replicated by combining it with more generalized NSF programs. The NWSC is not a generic high-performance computing (HPC) facility; it is a laboratory uniquely optimized for atmospheric science workflows, with a hardware and storage architecture specifically designed to handle the massive, high-bandwidth data demands of Earth system modeling. Furthermore, its model of providing an excellent, free-at-point-of-use technical support team ensures that the focus remains on the science rather than the overhead of systems administration. This centralized expertise allows individual researchers, smaller labs, and even entire universities—who would otherwi

Page 4 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: NCAR Mesa Lab (located in Boulder, Colorado) a/b) Ownership of the NSF NCAR Mesa Lab building for public and private use. Far more than just an office building, NSF NCAR Mesa Lab is an iconic and purpose-built facility designed specifically for the study of atmospheric science. Its position at the physical interface of the Rocky Mountain foothills and the Great Plains is a deliberate reflection of its mission, serving as a visible symbol—in an iconically American setting—of the federal government's enduring commitment to science in service of society. For many in the field, including myself, the Mesa Lab holds singular importance as a focal gathering point for the global atmospheric science community. My own early career exposure to weather and Earth system modeling, in fact, occurred within these walls, and I have long felt that the facility’s architecture and location inspire a necessary sense of awe regarding the atmosphere’s complexity a

Page 1 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: Dear Acting Director Stone and the NSF NCAR restructuring team: I am writing to provide a formal response to the Request for Information (RFI) regarding the proposed restructuring of the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and its critical weather science infrastructure contained within the January 23, 2026 Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) entitled “NSF Intent to Restructure Critical Weather Infrastructure.” I submit these comments in my professional capacity as an atmospheric research scientist within the University of California, where my research focuses on the physics and dynamics of atmospheric processes related to extreme weather events and their role in shifting natural hazard and disaster risk. My perspective is informed by a public-sector career dedicated to bridging the gap between fundamental atmospheric research and real-world application in an academic context, with a particular focus on understanding and mitigating

I just submitted my letter to NSF responding to its proposal to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). I argue that doing so would be an astonishing and avoidable misstep, and that federal support for the institution should in fact be *increased.* [1/4]

Asking @captmarkkelly.bsky.social & @gallego.senate.gov to vote no on Marky Mark & whoever is next & the person after that. No good can come of any President Epstein appointee. Make it as hard as possible for this regime to function. Nothing good happens as long as they’re in office.

This is the sort of thing we need to see more of.

Happy, happy!

Cynicism and doomerism
are sophisticated methods
of giving up.
#zentao

Billboard ad for public transit visible from a freeway filled with cars and congestion, that says “You are not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic.”

One of the best of all time.

“You’re not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic.”

Wish we had come up with that one. #UrbanTruth

Good news: Scientists were wrong about how bad sea level rise is.

Bad news: It’s even worse than we thought.

A group of old folks protesting the war on Piedmont Ave in Oakland. Probably not their first antiwar protest. Cars honking in support. Small but principled.

My grandmothers were also interesting. My mother's mother taught school - I'm the 4th generation of college-educated women. My father's mother left school after 8th grade to help her mother run a hotel. She was widowed young, but took secretarial classes while working retail and then worked at that.

My father's father had a Ford dealership in West Texas in the late 20s and early 30s. My mother's father was in management for a cotton gin company. He and his brother put each other through the U of Oklahoma.

Nope.

A man asked me last night what publishing needs to do for literary fiction to begin appealing to men again. I said, as nicely as I could, that, with over 2,000 books published every Tuesday, of which many would appeal to men, it’s not a publishing problem, it’s a men problem.

No one does it alone.
Life requires collaboration.
Work together or die.
#zentao

Tired: Misperceiving the shadows in Plato's cave as reality.

Wired: Betting on the shadows in Plato's cave.

Don't jinx it by getting hopeful too soon! (I just looked at the returns and had a similar reaction and I don't even live in Texas anymore.)

That's true as well.

What this tells you is that they're doing all they can to make trans lives miserable no matter what calls people make.

The rule of law torn to shreds.
Courts must respond methodically.
They can’t keep up.
#zentao

Endings and Other Lies - Uncanny Magazine May 1, 2003: Six weeks after the US-led invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner that read, “Mission Accomplished.” He announced tha...

My essay in the new issue of Uncanny.

I almost emailed @michaeldthomas.bsky.social to ask if I could update the ending after the events of the past week…

www.uncannymagazine.com/article/endi...

The Supreme Court doesn't care if you want to copyright your AI-generated art The highest court in the US declined to review a case about copyrighting artwork created with the help of AI.

And BOOM goes the dynamite. To all the AI Bros who have slid into my mentions to tell me that you CAN in fact copyright AI materials, the Supreme Court has told you to go suck rocks. A prompt is not authorship. And if there is no author, there is no valid copyright.

www.engadget.com/ai/the-supre...

At least the Supreme Court isn't screwing this up. You can't copyright things created by so-called AI because they don't have a human author. Which means that so-called author who is generating 100s of books can't copyright any of them because she didn't write them.

Working together —
humans, animals, plants, elements —
we make a living world.
#zentao

No quick fixes, but
many quick stupidities.
Not civilized yet.
#zentao

All the breaking news is leading too many news organizations to bury essential facts like 1) Trump’s reasons for attacking were all lies and 2)The whole thing is illegal by domestic and international law.

For my entire life, the people protesting US wars have always been ultimately vindicated and that being right is completely forgotten when the next war comes.

Frankly, I expected better from a FIFA Peace prize winner

Killing girls in Iran
to distract from corruption at home.
Not civilized yet.
#zentao

This is just such an embarrassing way for a country to fall apart.

In my utopian vision of the future, instead of offloading all the pointless, annoying work tasks (like reports that none one will read and needlessly opaque forms) to robots, we restructure work and society so that the pointless tasks don't happen at all.

I took a class in darning and in sashiko patching and now I'm all excited about being able to do things I thought I was no good at. More at the Treehouse Writers blog. treehousewriters.com/wp53/2026/02...