Full Transcript for Oceanography, Heat Domes, and Getting "Stranded" at Sea with Dr. Larry O'Neill

talk about true changes in your 30s Okay, like everything that you've been talking she's like I love what you're talking about. Maybe she said this to you too, but a lot of it is geared towards recent new hires. And I told her I was like a lot of it is still the same. You still have to network you still have to fill your resume, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah. Everyone thinks that their situation is unique. Yeah, you know, that's not for me. What do I do? I'm in my 30s Like, you know, like years old. Nic  I'm in my 30s. Okay, this is good. So good advice for people who want to change career in their 30s Like Nic, like if I wanted to, for example. Laura  Yeah. It was like, I'm sick of this. I'm out of here. Nic  Yeah, so what is the what would I do? I mean, I would call my friends. Laura Ok, phone a friend. I like that. Nic That was the first thing I would do. I mean, it just depends I guess on what I you know, what you would be interested in like, whatever, how big a career shift are we talking in my just wanting a different company, or do I want to become a meteorologist or something, then it's totally different. And I feel like that's a scarier one to reset on. When you're in your 30s is like a complete career change, not just sort of a shift from left to right. But you know, I don't know I think of it in in my mind, there's just stages of your life, right? There's different things that you do for a certain amount of time and then you do something else. And that happens. Even if you stay at the same company. You don't tend to do the same thing for 30 years. So that's really the frame of mind that I would put myself in it's like, okay, I know like right now for example, I am in basically a business development, marketing and management role. So I have a lot of different hats. I do a lot of different things. And ultimately, I'm judged on my performance, getting work for people so that we can keep doing what we've been doing. And that's new ish for me. But it's more what I wanted to be doing in the first place. Right? So I made a shift in my 30s from one company to another, to follow that path, you know, where I get to meet people and make connections and do all of this stuff that is fun and interesting for me, but I couldn't do previously so that's just part of the reason I switched jobs in general. To do that. I again, I just talk to people who are interested in letting me do that, and I you know, I have a network of people that I know and you know, I've tried to maintain contacts in different industries in general, for that reason, but also because I just like catching up with old friends and that is how I got this job. So you know, and it's been great for me, I really enjoyed it. So, but now that I've talked to you for two minutes What do you think of what I just said? Laura   I think the first thing that makes sense is the you said your frame of mind. I think that's the very first thing. Anybody who's changing their career regardless of

whether you're student and you decide to change the degree you're going after. I know that causes people a lot of anxiety. If you are in your 30s and you've already worked, we're trying a couple of things and that you're not finding that you're fulfilled or satisfied. A lot of people revert to the exact same thing. Like I'm feeling like I'm failing or something's not going right but if you listen to all of our guests, it's pretty much normal. You know, you try some things you figure out what you like, what you don't like, and I think that's what needs to happen is you're paying attention to what you like and don't like. And then you're looking at, okay, these are the directions or direction that I'd like to go. And then if you don't have a network, I mean, you went to school, so you know somebody or maybe you didn't, I don't know. So whether you have a network or not, you want to either start building one or start leaning on what you already have. So all the things you said were applicable Nic. Nic Hey, look at that. Laura I just I think a lot of people don't have an underlying network, so maybe they're not as outgoing as you and holding on to talking to people and stuff. And then I think we've touched on this before, but I think a lot of how we perceive the world is the stories we tell ourselves. So if you're telling yourself I'm 30 and I'm washed up and I'm never gonna find a job. Then that's then you are you're living you will manifest that. You tell yourself I'm 30 and I'm reinventing myself and this is exciting times and it's an opportunity for me to find something new. You're going to come across that way in an interview, you're going to be more positive about what you're looking at. So a lot of it is just setting your frame of mind which sets your frame of reference and then will lead to more and better opportunities. Nic   Yeah, 100% Yeah, you know, and it's one of the things you say, you know, um, you know, some people probably aren't as outgoing as I am, right, like, which is true to a degree and I think, but there's also ways that you can almost I don't want to say force yourself, but you can kind of put yourself in a situation where you have to be a little outgoing, right? And sometimes that's joining an organization. You know, it's why I joined NAEP for examples like, hey, I need to meet people that are in this field that do what I do. So I might as well join an organization, but that doesn't, it shouldn't stop there. And I think that's a lot of times like, Oh, I'm in the organization. I made it. I did. I mean, so, um, you know, I don't have to do anything else now. Right. But you know, I decided to be part of the board and get involved in the leadership of NAEP because I wanted to meet people and you don't meet people by just sitting watching a webinar by yourself in a room like you have to be engaged. So find a way to do that be part of an organization and literally be part of it. Like, Laura   I wonder who would be looking for volunteers in this space? I mean, I don't know. Nic  Exactly. Laura  Begging over here for volunteers. Hello, hello. Yeah. People. It's so hard. It's not hard. It's so not hard. But you know what happens? People tell themselves the story. I'm an introvert, that's a story. That's total made up garbage. I don't care how many quizzes you took. That is a story that either someone has fed you or you're continuing to tell yourself, and you can turn that around and say I used to be shy. I used to be someone who didn't like to talk but I have made purposeful efforts to outgrow that or to force myself and then tell yourself a new story. Nic  But like okay, the thing that frustrates me about introvert, extrovert is that people are dynamic, they are not black and white, right? Every single person has had a moment where they are just the funnest person in the room. It happens. You know, you can be engaging and outgoing and all of these charming things in certain situations and scenarios. Maybe that's only with your family or only people who could trust but you can do it. And there's there's tangible evidence in your life, that you have done it. Everybody has a story, you know, yeah, so stop it with that like that. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Laura   Yeah. And I don't want to offend any all the 75% of our listeners who are going to think but I've am an introvert I so am. I just encourage you to think about every time you say that and rewrite that story because it is something you're just telling yourself which is holding you back right and creating your reality. Nic  Yeah, and for me like I honestly I struggled with that and it's it sounds silly to say now because I just I've been able to get through it but like, I had to change my mindset from I'm an introvert to I have a battery and that battery runs out and I've found a way to to increase capacity. I can go a lot longer a lot more social than I ever could when I was younger, but that's practice and you know kind of getting to know myself a little bit. You know, that's what your 30s are for. Right? Laura  Well and like you said, getting in the right space with the right people. I'm going to be a total introvert if I'm a room with a certain type of politically stanced persons. But if I'm in a room full of other environmental professionals who all love to travel, all of craft beer all have very similar interests. And I find myself very comfortable. So you know, your level of comfort plays a big part in that as well. Nic  Yeah, absolutely. It does. It's like I remember going to NAEP conferences like the I'm going to do the same thing this year. Every time I start going, I just get a big smile on my face. Because there's so many people, I'm really excited to see it again. And that's how you know that you're in the right space. You're excited to do the social thing. And that's really cool. Laura  Yeah, so the other thing else is sort of the third thing that I find most people who are trying to make a

transition later in life. Nic I know 30s is so much later in life. Laura I've had people tell me like, Oh, I'm 40 something and I'm like, Yeah, me too. Like, it's your story. If your story says you're 40 something and washed up. Oh, that's not my story. I'm 40 and just get started. So the other thing though, that people seem to struggle with, and it makes sense is is the skills gap. So I've worked for six years, and I've only gotten as far as doing marketing, but my degrees in conservation habitat, something I haven't touched anything that has to do with that and now I want to get back into it. And that is a real challenge. And I think that but it's the same advice for younger people. You got to start volunteering, you start to start exploring, you still have to find a way to gain that experience and that might be taking some more classes that might be watching some webinars, join NAEP and tune in to webinars get credit for these things. And then you can at least in your cover letter, talk about that you are trying to pick that stuff up and that you are making intentional efforts to fill those gaps and that you know if someone's looking to hire and they need someone tomorrow, they may be willing to overlook that. Nic  Yeah. And then, you know, like, your narrative can't be like, Well, this was my degree. So I stopped doing it now and I get back into it, but I haven't done anything to prove that I want to get back into it. Like it can't be like, Well, I just hope you'll hire me based on my degree. It's gotta be like, look, hey, I did this thing. Like for me, like, you know, like, I went in and there was a recession. I took a job that was not related to my field. For me, it ended up being exactly what I wanted to do. And I wish I had known that it existed before. But if it wasn't what I wanted to do, then I'd have to find a way to do that more wildlife biology thing. You know, go find ways to volunteer and then say to the person that you're trying to hire hey, look, I love doing this. I have volunteered, I have interned I have done all of these XYZ things, because I'm trying to prove to you how much I care about this. And that's a much better story than like, well, you know, it's kind of want to, you know, use my degree. Laura  Right. I wasted all that money and I want to get back to it. Yeah, all good points. So I think that covers it is really the three main things is your mindset, getting out there, and networking and start filling those gaps. Nic   Yeah. Perfect. Well, let's get to our interview then. Laura All right. [Interview with Dr. Larry O' Neill Starts] Laura  Welcome back to EPR today we have Larry O'Neill, associate professor with Oregon State University and the Oregon Climate Service on the show. There he is a true scientist working on things like air and sea interactions, satellite meteorology and oceanography, atmospheric boundary layer and ocean mixed layer dynamics. Welcome, Larry. Dr. Larry O'Neill  Thank you for having

me. Laura Awesome. We're so excited to have you here today. Why don't you start off telling us a little bit about your work and what a climate scientist does? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yes. So basically, a lot of my research has to do with looking at how the ocean affects the weather and how the weather affects the ocean. And it's something that's you know, you wouldn't necessarily think that there's a big relationship with, but it's actually quite important for describing how our climate is so you think about, you know, just the state of Oregon or US West, some of the big things that big events that influence our livelihoods. So things like droughts, floods, heat waves, like the heat dome we had last summer, and, you know, snowpack, free inflows, all those things. And that's affected by the weather. And it turns out that our weather is really affected by things that happen way out in the middle of the ocean that you might not think that we care about. So especially things like the tropics in the ocean, so they think like palm trees and Mai Tais and all that, and the ocean currents, temperatures and things like that there can actually have a big effect on our weather. And so one of my big research focuses is looking at how the ocean kind of affects the weather and how we can observe it. So our observing systems like we use satellites, buoys, sometimes you go out on ships, things like that. And yeah, and that's basically how kind of the broad stroke of what we do. And so my work with the Oregon climate service, and as a state climatologist is actually looking at how weather events can impact a variety, basically society and a variety of things within society. So agricultural production, livestock production, flood risk management, you know, the effects of heat on workers, and the ecosystem, the natural systems, fish, all those sorts of things. And so it kind of keeps us busy. Because the last few years have been really impactful. We've seen some really impactful events. [Oceanography] Laura  That's really awesome. I think, you know, we think about the environment. We think about that stuff we can touch, like the ocean and the land, but the atmosphere and our weather and climate is directly related. So that's really interesting. And you have a PhD in oceanography from Oregon State University and a bachelor's in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of California Davis. When did you first get interested in weather and what drove you to it? Dr. Larry O'Neill   Yeah, so I actually grew up in was born in the Midwest in South Dakota and in that state, we had a lot of different weather, like, lots of different types of weather, almost everything except tropical cyclones and things like that. And so it really fascinated me. And the weather would change very quickly. It'd be 70 degrees one day and then the next day it would be 20 degrees and snowing. And that would happen actually, quite often. And so that sort of thing just infinitely fascinated me about how things could change so much. We also had great thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail storms and all that stuff. And so that really kind of seeded my interest in weather. And you know, instead of watching cartoons when I was a kid, I would watch like to watch the weather channel. And that was much to chagrin of my brother and sister. I have the Weather Channel on and looking at the whatever else is going on. Yeah, so just from an early age, I, you know, I kind of knew that's what I wanted to do. And so I went through the process of you know, taking the classes I need to whatever it is, you know, I got into undergrad, and at that point, you have to start to figure out, oh, you can't just, you know, broadly study the weather, you have to kind of start to specialize in something. And so, I didn't know if I wanted to forecast or if I wanted to work in the industry. Or work for the military or something like that. And then I found out about this field of study called air-sea interactions where you can study how the weather and ocean interact with each other. And I got this nice romantic notion that I could sit on a beach somewhere with a Mai Tai with someone or something and have my feet in the stands and do that in. It doesn't quite work out like that. But I ended up in Oregon of all places. But it was yeah, it was great. And at that point, it's a very interdisciplinary research area. So getting a graduate degree in oceanography, so learning how the ocean works was kind of really beneficial for that. And then just kind of the right project came along that saw my graduate research to do with looking using satellites to measure things about air-sea interaction. So I learned quite a bit about like, how satellites work and how NASA works and things like that. And you know, the rest is history. Laura  That's awesome. So you worked on a lot of cool projects at school. What is the thing that kind of led you to what you're doing now? Is there a specific project that you worked on? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, so actually, when I was started in graduate school, there were these new satellites that had just been launched. So NASA will launch environmental satellites that can measure things about you know, either ocean temperatures, or you know, actually a wide variety of variables. It's quite amazing. And NASA's mission, so you might think, Well, why doesn't something like an agency like NOAA do this sort of environmental monitoring and things like that. And it turns out that NASA will, is their mandate is that they will develop new satellite missions that can eventually be transitioned over to operational capabilities. And so at the time, they had this new satellites that was could measure the wind on the ocean surface. So basically, you know, the wind makes waves on the little waves on the surface, and the satellite can measure those waves and then infer what the wind is from those. And it also had a new satellite that measured sea surface temperatures, the

temperature of just the surface, the ocean, and it had, you know, some bells and whistles. on it. And so those two satellite missions were kind of new and novel, and so I kind of cut my teeth on that in my graduate studies. And so that kind of led me to continuing developing these missions. And so right now I'm involved in a new mission that with NASA that can actually now measure ocean surface currents. So from space, which is just yeah, and there's just so much information you can get from that. So you kind of think about the middle of the ocean. It's like, you know, if you wanted to see what the wind was the middle of the ocean, you'd have to like put out like this nice buoy with this like wind vane on it. You know, in the middle of the ocean. And that's a lot of trouble. And it's like, Why Does anyone care about the wind 3000 miles away from land, and a lot of my work kind of gives some motivation for why that's important for our climates and why that's important for society and why we should invest in that. Laura  Yeah, that's really interesting. So I've kind of a weird, related question for you. And this is a personal question I've had for a while and a friend of mine had been trying to figure this out. On a recent trip to Hawaii. We were flying, you know, over quite a bit of water and noticing all these like surface patterns. It looks almost like snail trails or whatever. Like, what is that? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, So it depends exactly where you were at. So it could be a couple of things. But if you were if you're kind of lower, you know, if you weren't very high in the area, you're kind of seeing those. It turns out that the wind can actually cause these circulation cells in the ocean. Like a you know, a few 100 meters or maybe a kilometer or so something like a couple football fields in length or something, and they'll form along the direction of the wind, and where the water converges. You'll kind of get all these surfactants in the ocean and little bubbles and foam and things like that, that kind of form into these rows in what is called convergent zone. And so that might have been something of what you're seeing. If you're higher up and we're seeing like a bigger field of view you might have been seeing like the ocean is just filled with eddies and these are just these swirling masses of water that form naturally from sharing of ocean currents and things like that. And you'll tend to get these like little convergence zones associated with those eddies that kind of bring all that foam and surfactants and things together into like straight lines. Or curved lines or something like that. And it's all kind of a random process. So, you know, if you're trying to make some, you know, trying to like figure out exactly what's going on with like one line or something they'll be very hard to do, but kind of on average, if you look at a bunch of them, you'll see that on average, that's kind of what happens. Nic   Wow. I mean, yeah, and that's

so neat. And man so we love we love giving our listeners like a deeper look into career options. And we haven't really discussed a career not and research so you you said you know, you had this idea you're going to be on a beach sipping Mai Tai is going oh wow, look at that the weather. Isn't that neat? But so what is what is the day in a life for you? Like Like what does it actually look like? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, so last few years, I kind of almost feel like I'm working two jobs really because I have like a research program and advising program. So I have a few graduates and some advising and which is wonderful. It's one of the you know, kind of really fulfilling parts of my job is to be able to kind of helped build somebody else's career and things like that. But then there's also this part of my job with the word climate service, where I'm doing a lot more outreach and advising on policy decisions or advising state or federal agencies on things related to climate, stuff like that. And then also, I get a lot of inquiries from the public about things they got So a day in a life is a little hectic, because sometimes they go from the research side or like trying to fix a computer or, you know, thinking about some really nuanced part of a data analysis thing for a couple hours and then you know, maybe I have a media requests lately. There's been a lot of interest in the drought conditions in Oregon. And then also in like, last summer, there was the heat dome. Sometimes we get these isolated flooding events or wildfires are also a big thing too. And so there are things to do with that. We also generate as part of our mandate for the Oregon climate services  that we also produce reports like Oregon's state climate assessments every two years. And so that basically tries to give a summary of recent research and trends in how climate is of the state of the Climate in Oregon, how it's changing what kind of changes we can expect in the future, and then what kind of impacts that we can expect onto our, onto society into natural systems as well. And so yeah, so the day in a life is kind of, yeah, Nic  Yeah, it's all of it. It's everything. Dr. Larry O'Neill  It's quite, it's quite exciting. A lot of times overwhelming sometimes. But yeah, [Heat Domes] Nic  Yeah. well, you mentioned the heat dome a couple of times, and so. I think one of our favorite parts of the show is that Laura and I are both infinitely curious. I need to know so how did that relate to that? How does the heat dome, which in my mind, again, doesn't relate to the ocean so much so how does that all, how did that happen? And how are you the expert there talking about heat domes. Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, so the heat. I mean, one of the most interesting things about heat dome, at least to me was that it happens in a time of year in June, where we basically never had heat waves we almost never had 100 degree day in Oregon. In June. I mean, we had a few but not hardly very many. And

then also the fact that that that was just so hot, just blew the records out. It wasn't just a couple of degrees and he was like, you know, Portland was 116. Salem was 112. So incredibly, and then, if you actually look dug a little bit deeper into so the heat dome itself was actually nothing more than a high pressure ridge that set up off our coast. And it was very similar to other types of heat waves that we have  you know, in the Pacific Northwest. So it was kind of a similar pattern. It was just so much stronger than any other events that we had seen before. So one of the things that made it so interesting was we didn't know why. And we still don't know really why it was so strong. And you know, part of the reason the heat dome was so intense as far as the heat goes is there's a bit about climate change. So just the climate of warming, but there's also this question that also comes up in other types of extreme weather events via tornadoes or hurricanes or, you know, extreme rainstorms or wind events is that our midlatitude Jetstream is changing a lot. So, more it's we suspect is changing a lot, but we haven't really been able to pin down some of the details on why that is or how it is. And so when it really interesting things about the heat dome was that you know, it was just such a manifestation that yes, something is changing. We just don't know quite know what it is yet. And you know, it might be linked to the changing Arctic. So ice is melting in the Arctic. It's exposing the ocean as that ocean melt is affecting the atmosphere. So that's kind of where the air sea interaction part comes into this. And there's reason to suspect kind of before, you know, there's a reason suspect that those changes are changing, radically altering our jet stream patterns. And so the jet stream is just as kind of strong wind currents that kind of bend up and down around high and low pressure systems. And so we have low pressure systems and we have storms and we have high pressure systems tend to have fair weather and potentially very hot weather. This is why this is all kind of important. Nic   Yeah, it's really great to hear that your enthusiasm about it too, because it's a big project. It's it's a big event and it's complicated. Yeah, it's you're still trying to find get to the bottom of what it means. And so do you have other projects like that that you're working on that you consider pretty exciting? And that you're trying to dive into just like that? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, so right now, I'm working with a couple students in advising and we're actually looking at some of these air-sea interaction problems in the North Pacific. So basically, how the the temperature of the ocean how that varies in time and then how the energy is exchanged, that heat and moisture is exchanged in the ocean to the atmosphere. And then what happens downstream is there's some sort of feedback effect where the ocean could affect the weather and then that could feed back onto the ocean temperature or something. And one thing that in the last 10 or 15 years that seems to be occurring more often is getting these were you know that you might have heard the blob before, you know, the colloquialism for it, you know, kind of more formally, it's they're called marine heat waves and essentially it's that we just get these big, very large patches of warm water, very, very warm water in the North Pacific. And there is a question about, you know, how it's affecting our weather patterns, or if it is, if it's affecting our precipitation patterns, and then it also has a demonstrated effect on the ecosystem in the North Pacific. So fisheries are very affected by whether this warm patch is in the ocean or if it's not, so it's affects the phytoplankton in the ocean. And then it goes all down through the food web. So until we get to kind of, you know, fisheries, the stuff that we use commercially. And it turns out that when there's warm patches there, the ecosystem completely changes. And so the type of fish the amount the yield that you get from fisheries changes a lot. So it has a kind of big societal interest, at least to that and it's not just concentrated to, you know, the people who live right near the ocean, but it also affects, you know, a lot of things too. And so that's one project we're working on is to understand how these marine heat waves form and then how they dissipate. And so we've had some really good kind of good studies with that's looking and we can use satellites to do that, which is just amazing. And other types of weather, weather data, stuff like that. So that's one project. The second one is a recently went out to sea off the coast of California as part of this NASA sponsored project to look at the effects of ocean currents on the climate essentially, and how variations in ocean currents on very small scales like on the order of like a mile or two in the coastal ocean, can affect you know, the temperature structure the ocean can affect the biology of the ocean, the fisheries, things like that. And then how all that's my specific part in that project is to figure out how these ocean currents are affecting the weather or the atmosphere above it. And so I launched a whole bunch of radio sound balloons, which is quite exciting. The hardest part of that was actually believe it or not, is not getting all the equipment together and getting a sampling plan all that it was just tying the balloon because my fingers and you have to kind of tie so I launched like 100 of these balloons and my fingers were just raw from, Nic  Yeah, because like one or two no big deal, but 100. Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yes, yes. So 100 of them and I was launching like, Laura  Where are those students of yours? Nic Yeah, Next time. Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah. I did actually have a student that was better at tying the balloons but she couldn't because of COVID and because of the ship we were on, didn't have enough berthing space for more people,

so she couldn't come. But I wouldn't want to actually burden a student with like something simple like that. I would want them to actually do some, you know, more exciting science. I'd probably end up tying the balloons anyway. Laura  Yeah, there you go. So, your website says that you're working on a project that's working on characterizing the divergence variability from scatterometer observations. Robert Yeah, what I don't know what that is. What is that? Is that one of those projects? Or is that another project? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, so that was not a very exciting project. There's nothing I can say that would probably interest a normal person for that, but I'll try to give like a little, Laura  Not all our listeners are normal, you know, we're all here because of our jobs. So we need to know what these things are. Dr. Larry O'Neill  So that project I was working with colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And so one of the things that's really important for environmental monitoring is having these long data records so you go out and measure data on stuff, and in this case was wind over the ocean and scatterometer was the satellite mission that is telling you about them to measure the winds on the ocean surface by measuring how weighty it is. And so we've had a couple of different satellite missions now. And this project had to do with looking at the differences between the different satellites to see if we have a homogeneous data record. And this is important because if we want to assess what impacts on the weather that the changing climate is having, for instance, we need to have like a very homogeneous data record across multiple observing missions. And so this project was trying to essentially take all these different datasets and inter calibrate them together. And one of the things is doing that is looking at spatial changes of winds over small spatial scales. And so that's basically the divergence and vorticity are fancy words for changes in wind over spatial scales. And it turns out that there's a lot of information that can be gained from that to learn how storms form, or how [33:23 unintelligible] motions the atmosphere like thunderstorms. And things can create like outflow events and stuff like that. And it turns out that there's quite a bit of differences between different satellite datasets in this and so it's a challenging project, and it gets quite into the details and weeds and things and so I'll try to leave you out of that but Laura  I think it's great, you know, this is science. Nic It's cool. Laura It's making science work, Dr. Larry O'Neill  The divergence vorticity or just  really related to work related to precipitation events. So it's kind of how wind can help create precipitation and things like that. Not only over the ocean but also in storms that come on to land and things like that. Nic  Yeah. And you know, it's funny, though, because like we talked earlier, a little bit about the social impact of

what you're doing, right how some of what you do is related to fisheries, which impacts everyone. And you're also asked to be an expert and you have to talk about all of these things and put them in bite sized pieces for people, which can be really challenging. So how do you manage to do that? And do you find it difficult to convey the social side of what you're doing to other people? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, it's a great question. It is challenging to be able to do that. One of the things is one of the most challenging things. So it's fairly straightforward if there's that scientific consensus on why something happened. So if, for instance, there's you know, there's a lot of consensus about why the temperature is changing why climate change is happening. And so that is easier to convey because it's an you know, fairly, it's not a simple story. But it is, it's one you can kind of, you know, not worry about too much about getting the science wrong and that as you're communicating. The real challenge is when there isn't necessarily consensus on some issue or why something's happening. So why are we in the third year of drought right now? We don't quite know. We know climate change. Is part of it. But you know, there's different ideas about why we're going through such severe drought for the last 10,20 years. That's one example that I can give. So, kind of just the nuts and bolts of trying to distill a story down that people can kind of you know, people have like short, fairly short attention spans on things that they aren't, like truly interested in. So I've done a lot of science communication type stuff. So one of the things that compass, science communication, they have a program, and they do these message boxes, and so I actually do a lot of them so I have stacks of message boxes that I do before interviews when I know what the topic will be, so that the worst thing to do is to kind of get in front of a bunch of people and not have a story and just kind of comment on and you see that a lot from people and so the thing is to yeah, there's has to be a little bit of legwork beforehand. So besides communications about kind of effort and legwork, knowing your audience, knowing your key messages, being able to have a key message for a 15 second time slot. 30 seconds, have an elevator pitch and it sounds kind of corny a little bit. Maybe they do that. But operationally or in practice, those are the things that I think can help really make you an effective science communicator. So those are things that kind of work on quite a bit. And you know, it always takes practice and you always kind of make mistakes or you know, occasionally you do end up doing an interview where you just kind of fumble through something and it's terrible but then then sometimes you do, like last summer was really crazy. Around the time we had the heat dome events because I did I mean maybe 50,75 interviews or so over a week period and and some of those were just you know, the some of the questions were stuff that you didn't necessarily message box or anticipate or whatever or necessarily have the best thing on but you were like, you're on live TV. So Nic  right, right, right, right. Dr. Larry O'Neill You know, say something. Nic My name is Larry. Laura  There's a reason we don't do this live. Nic   I know. But, so how does it feel to be really popular when things are going horribly wrong? Dr. Larry O'Neill  I don't necessarily think it's really popular but it is. There's a an intense responsibility to because you're in the moment you're, you're the person in the moment that's trying to get the message out that is to a receptive audience. So you have one chance you know, it's like the championship basketball game and you're in the fourth quarter and you know, if you make the shot, you win if you if you don't make it, you lose. Yeah. So there's an intense responsibility to you know, get the right message and being correct about the science, but then distilling it down to a message that people can understand. So not going on and, you know, doing like gibberish, talking about things like divergence vorticity and stuff like that. And by just doing that, and then really focusing on like, the important things, the impacts, why should we care about this thing, or what is the important stuff and that is really challenging and stuff that we you could do an interview you can do okay, but then afterwards, you're thinking, Oh, I should have talked about the impact of heat intensity on workers or, you know, vulnerable population I mean, there are things that you could, that you wish you would have said, but you only have maybe 40 seconds to make your story. And so it ends up being really intense responsibility, and I'm not sure how I ended up in this and then you know, they're oftentimes we, you get put in a position, you know, there's just that situation just comes up and you're just that person that's there. And so you have to kind of step up and do the thing that you need to do. And so, that's a little bit of it. And you know, you don't have to do it perfectly, but you just kind of have to do it adequately or something. You want to do it perfect, but maybe adequate is even better than perfection. [Getting "Stranded" at Sea] Nic  Yes, yes, exactly. That's very well said. So you spend a lot of time on the ocean. So I have to ask Have you ever been shipwrecked? Has that ever happened? Dr. Larry O'Neill  I guess that's how you define ship wrecked? So this, this cruise that we just went on and it was in October of this year. It was supposed to be you know, like, three weeks or something cruise and we're between 50 and 150 miles off of San Francisco. And it was on the Oceanis which is an OSU ship that just said this was gonna be a second last cruise as we retired and it was going to be replaced. And so the Oceanis  is great, is seaworthy and all that get out there. And we had this big atmospheric river that come in so

atmospheric river events is like a big storm big rainy storm, and it's very windy and the first night we had this like 30 foot wave washed over the back of the ship and we had these very expensive instruments that we were getting ready to deploy that was critical to the experiments that we were doing. The wave washed was shipped and just wrecked. You know $500,000  worth of instruments destroyed. And so we were gonna have to go back into port anyway, but as we're getting closer, we started this from Newport going down to San Francisco. So the instruments are all kind of ruined. And then turns out that we were leaking hydraulic fluid that they didn't know where. And it was the propulsion system. And so basically when the fluid was gone, we were dead. So we had to go into San Francisco anyway. And so we get in there. So it was like 100 gallons of hydraulic fluid that they don't know where it went to the leaked into the ocean or wherever but we had to get tugged in the San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge and it was quite exciting to go into. Never done that before. But we were in a tug, you know being pulled by a tugboat. So isn't that exciting? And we get into San Fransisco and it was late at night and they pulled us into the wrong berth for the draft of the ship. So the tide went out, the ship ran aground and mashed up the bottom of the ship, and gosh so we thought this ship would have to go into drydock which is basically going to be the end of our cruise. And so the captain was like, you know, screw COVID protocols just you know, go off enjoy San Francisco for a few days and fortunately they found the leak. It was small.  Fortunately it wasn't that much damage to the edge of the hull of the ship. And a couple people from San Diego to you know were whose instruments got smashed, they were able to come up here and fix them. kind of help them do that. And so actually after five days we were back out to sea and we deployed while three of the four instruments one of them was just too badly destroyed. And the ship was great. And I launched lots of balloons and and then you know part part of the ship. Part of the fuel experiment was that there was their aircrafts test with instruments and there were other their sail drones or other drifting buoys and stuff so as part of the big thing, so we were really critical part of that and so it was really, really a bummer if the ship could have gone out. Laura  We we have been calling that segment our field notes and considered changing it to field fails and Nic yeah that's exactly it. Laura I think you'd be top runner for that right now. Nic Yeah, that's really good. Dr. Larry O'Neill  It had a happy ending. So at least Nic  Yeah, that's true. Yeah. All good ones should really. Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, I don't necessarily like being able to be out at sea especially for like three weeks it kind of shipped gets small and you know, it's started even though the food's great and the crew's great and

everyone, all your colleagues are really good. So it's actually kind of nice to actually get a couple of days out in San Francisco. You can go and get like a coffee and run to the store and get a part or something if you need it. And it was good. Laura  That's okay. I know when I even when I'm in a really nice place. After about two weeks, I'm ready to jump back home. So normally, not normally, the majority of the people we talk to they fall underneath the avenue of a career path that's been very exploratory. I thought I was gonna do this and then I went to do that and yours seems very you know, you had a passion you followed it and it's led you to be that expert that people call upon when something's happening, which is pretty cool. What's left what's on your career bucket list? Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, that's a good one. I, Laura  aside from being going underneath the gate bridge without the tugboat. Dr. Larry O'Neill   I mean, I would really like to go to Antarctica someday or the Southern Ocean. So part of my thesis research was you I did a lot of stuff in the southern ocean, which is kind of the party of the ocean that said, north of Antarctica and goes all around it. And so Sunday, although as I get older, you know, you have to go out to see for like 6 to 12 weeks or so then you have to really make a big commitment for that. And the older I get, the more that starts to sound maybe not so appealing. And everything would be great, but it'd be nice to go see that especially maybe in 50 years, it'll look quite a bit different. So kind of see the, you know, see a penguin or something like that. Yeah, I still wouldn't mind putting instruments on a beach and drinking Mai Tais. You know, being involved kind of with satellite missions. It takes a long time to get satellite up and to start using the data so it can take 10 to 20 years. And so basically, being that kind of a research scientists using satellite data is oftentimes you're left waiting a decade or some measurements you really want to use. You spend a lot of time telling everyone how great these measurements are going to be and how, how much better the world's going to be and stuff and those sometimes you it's kind of you're waiting to do that you're waiting for the new instruments and just kind of doing the work the hard work, you know beforehand to do that. But you know, it's it was very strange. I never thought I would, you know, I was just asked to be the state climatologist because of interest in other areas or so I never thought I would do that. I never thought I would be talking about impactful events or working on some of this kind of stuff. So, you know, it's kind of serendipity a bit that I was, you know, I wasn't able to do something at the time that was needed. So, yes, serendipity. I think that's the word for it. Laura  Yeah, we're getting close to the end of our time, but we like to ask our guests about their hobbies and things like that. And I'm particularly drawn to yours. I thought it was pretty funny. But I really need I need you to tell us the full story, including a detailed description of your outfit. Dr. Larry O'Neill  Oh, yes. So this isn't necessarily a current hobby now, but when I was in grad school, like 15 years ago, or something, there's also kind of something there's a little bit of serendipity too. I was, you know, I decided to learn how to dance or something. So OSU has lots, Oregon State University has lots of dance classes and stuff. So it's like, Okay, I'll do that. And, you know, it's okay. It was fun. It's fun and with somebody, there was this ad or OSU has,  had this performance dance group and somebody who was in a dance class where she's like, Oh, you're, you're pretty good. You should try out for it. So I did. I said, okay, you're okay. And so I was part of this performance dance group for like, two years, and which was actually fun, but it was a little bit intense because there's a lot of lots of practice and you go to all these dance classes and stuff like that. So a little bit more than I was hoping for at the time, but it ended up being really fun because we go do these things like dance clubs and stuff in Portland and Seattle and Eugene and old folks homes. Things like that. And so yeah, so we did have all these dance routines, like, you know, swing and some hip hop's and Waltzes, all those sort of things. And the thing about dance, if you ever watched dance with the stars, they're always wearing these very flashy, extravagant costumes. I don't know why they do that.  I just want to wear t-shirt, jeans. Yeah, these things with like, glitter and, you know, poof stuff. Yeah, so we ended up with outfits like that, you know, like bright green or something. And yeah, it was really? Yeah, it was really awesome time, especially when you're younger. You make a lot of friends with all your fellow dancers in in the dance group and you meet a lot of people and you know, see a lot of things so it was really cool experience and I ended up you know, as I kind of got a postdoc and grew older, I didn't do it as much but for a little bit of time, I was a good dancer. Laura  That's awesome. Sounds really fun. Dr. Larry O'Neill  I'd go to a dance and people will take they say, oh, there's a west coast swing coming up in two songs. And, you know, I want to dance with you kind of thing. Like, oh, that's cool. Nic   Yeah, now I'm really hoping there's some social media posts with these dance moves you have somewhere. Dr. Larry O'Neill This was before social media. Thank God. Nic Too bad. Great, yeah. So Well, I mean, I'd say so we are just about out of time and it's been a lot of fun. We've learned a lot and we had we had some laughs which always is a great, that means we did a great job, right. It's been a really fun interview. So before we let you go, is there anything you'd like to add that we didn't cover? Dr. Larry O'Neill   I don't think so. Not. I mean, I could keep talking but I think this is great. Nic  Yeah. Before you go, where can people get in touch with you? Dr. Larry O'Neill  So you can always email me at or my Oregon State address if you have questions or especially about the climate or anything research wise. So I'm actually on Twitter, and I don't necessarily post very much so that you know my name Larry O'Neill, and I also do a lot of posts through the Oregon climate service. We all have our own Twitter accounts. It's more related to climate related things and my leave the snarky stuff to my personal Twitter accounts by um, Oregon climate service. You can get great information on climate. We post a lot of things on weather and climate variability and things to do with impacts and all that sort of scientists stuff. So either way is a good way to get a hold of me because I usually check those pretty often. Nic  Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being here. We had a great time. Laura Yeah, thanks so much. Dr. Larry O'Neill  Yeah, me too. Thank you very much. [Outro] Nic   And that's our show. I want to thank Larry so much for being on the show today. We had a lot of fun. It was really cool to hear so much about climate science. It was really neat. So hope you guys enjoyed it. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. See everybody. Laura Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai