ld you have scientific debates yes we could we have a lot of those that's like our most popular topic probably if you like I would say yeah religion debates and science debates are actually our most popular topic did you guys notice that let me put a poll well okay well I mean like what would you have guessed if I didn't say that let's put it that way what debates get the most engagement on modern day debate I'm going to put this poll in the chat and science religion politics soyboyism I made that last one up so I put this poll in the chat and I'm curious like what would you have guessed say if you did not hear me just say that what would you think like oh I would have thought that these are the most popular like what's our flagship what is modern day debate known for in terms of like oh the thing that they seem to get most traction or most engagement with viewers on is good all over cat well I can't believe you guessed the show I mock your value system is from Homer saying that to Ned Flanders so yeah I really wanted to say it too because I love quoting the Simpsons but you're right Brian yeah I mean you're right Oliver so anyway so the one that people are saying that the debates that get us the most traction oh crap I spelt soyboyism wrong in the poll screwed it up that one would have gotten the most votes if I just put the B in there now it just says soyoyism but the one that right now although this is a religion debate so that maybe is why it's like especially high but yeah like flagship I think our flagship topic is religion debates I actually think that's true it's kind of like what we're known for because there did you ever notice this folks there are big political speakers or debaters people who are known for it so for example obviously destiny vosh actual justice warrior does a lot of debates there are big religion debaters like Mike Jones he's got like what 250,000 he's got a quarter million subs are in raw mat so you have those and you don't really have a lot of big ones in the science world don't get me wrong I'm not saying you don't have good debaters you do have good debaters but in terms of the ones where it's like oh yeah they've got like 200,000 or 300,000 or 500,000 subscribers not as common do you notice that isn't that weird and the funny thing is yeah so it's like now that doesn't mean that they're like less rational or anything I'm not that's not it's not trying to be a dig at anybody I'm putting this over here I'm looking right now and the reason I say that though conspiracy cats has got a good following he's had like 70,000 let me look here he's had a big following 63,000 and then there's also like Professor Dave but he doesn't come on anymore he's really hard to get but we've had him a couple of times I don't know if you could count Kent Hovind it's kind of a religion debater and I hate even saying that but it's let's see yeah if you look at the best of modern day debate playlist on our channel you have you know Matt Dillhunty versus Mike Jones Destiny versus Matt Lauren Southern Nick Fuentes, Milo Unopolis Destiny, Gavin McGinnis Jesse Lee Peterson which by the way strangely that debate today the Jesse Lee Peterson debate with Professor Dave okay so anyway going back to the poll 65% say religion, 21% say science and only 7% say politics so that's kind of what I thought although I would have guessed science debates would have been more known but here's the thing there aren't as many big so anyway going through this playlist oh yeah by the way this is like a weird thing today our Jesse Lee Peterson debate with Professor Dave all of a sudden like jumped up like it normally gets like five views a day and all of a sudden today it got like 500 so somebody shared that somewhere probably like on like a reddit or a 4chan post or something someone shared that somewhere and it got traction but anyway I always pay attention to the stats I love I look at the stats all the time on the channel it's super interesting I just love like trying to see patterns and stuff it's interesting but Sargon versus Vosh see all of these are either big political or big religion debaters David Wood Richard Wolfe David D. Friedman Bart Ehrman Kim Iverson Mike Schermer whoa I just noticed no way could this really be all of the debates in our best of modern day debate list none of them are science debates I just realized that I'm like whoa there's no superstars that are known for debating now don't get me wrong Professor Dave like I said he's got like two million views or two million subs but he doesn't debate here like we haven't had him on for at least a year and I think it's been like two years if it's the last time he debated it was against Jesse Lee Peterson that might be three years let me see here at least two years ago it's two and a half years ago since we had Dave on are you seeing the pattern yep I look all the way to the bottom I see actual Justice Warrior Shu-Wan had Stefan Molyneux Ray Comfort I can't believe how many big names we've had we've had like Hovan versus Professor Dave is the only one on that list that was a big debate I remember that so like I just kind of shows you that's pretty interesting someone says what about T-Jump true T-Jump does a lot of science debates and he's a strong debater it's just that he doesn't he's not really one is like I'm thinking like big time in terms of like hundreds of thousands of views or not views subscribers now like I said I'm not saying that's like what makes it important for a modern day debate to host somebody because most of the people we host do not have anywhere close to 100,000 subscribers I'm just saying there are these different areas there's religion, there's politics there's science here are some of the differences between these things in terms of topics this is pretty interesting we have religion debates and the topics are timeless they're called evergreen pieces of content because they're always relevant does God exist is always relevant is Christianity true always relevant it has been for 2000 years it's probably going to be for a long time for all of these religion topics science debates pretty much the same flat earth it's been around for a while evolution it's another one it's been around for a while and those will probably be popular for a long time I don't think we're ever going to I don't think that those will ever stop being popular to some extent right now I think they're especially popular but I think they'll be pretty relevant even until I die which is presumably maybe hopefully like later out like I don't know 80s or 90s or whatever who knows political topics they don't have the same kind of shelf life they're not evergreen so for example let's look at some of the political topics now some of them are I agree so for example like abortion although I've got to tell you I should not have said that on the stream I mean what I meant to say smortion is that topic what's the word I'm looking for it's not actually that popular to be honest like those debates don't actually it's not sorry socialism versus capitalism that's actually pretty evergreen that'll be around for a while but let's look at the most recent ones for your debate was Andrew last name rhymes with mate participating in illegal activities that's not going to be popular in a year in fact that debate will probably get no more than a few views after a year like per day in fact probably less than that let's see should society be based on religion or race oh that's actually kind of might be a little more evergreen is the great reset real maybe popular for like a year or two but five years from now you're not going to see it nobody will click on that let's see well so many of these political topics I can't even say them out loud because they're so naughty let's see is biden succeeding as president it's not going to be popular in four years especially yeah political politics just changes faster topics change faster things just move way faster so that's one difference politics moves way faster than science or religion science and religion topics the ones we host they'll still get views so for example like Matt Jill Hunt versus Mike Jones we hosted that in person like three years ago it still gets like 500 views a day something like that so I think that was on whether or not God exists so that's pretty interesting that's one difference but the other thing is yeah interestingly so in the in terms of like the evergreenness politics doesn't have that same evergreenness oh my arm is sore in terms of stars by that I mean like people you know like people who are known for debating and they do it don't get me wrong there are a lot of science channels that are huge on youtube like if you do a natural science like like on biology or chemistry there's like a ton of channels that have over a million subs like it's a popular topic but how many of those debate a tiny amount and even put it this way even science channels that have over a hundred thousand subs how many of those people debate the only one that I can think of is professor Dave and he hasn't been on for two and a half years science just doesn't have the same amount of stars that actively debate so it has stars so like I'm trying to think of any but I can't remember any others off the top of my head but so that's an interesting difference because politics and religion obviously has stars check out as polymer says you should have science debates although it will end up a religious debate juicy rdub says most of the religious debates are religion versus science to be honest that's kind of a lot of them are there's definitely there's significant overlap which makes you think but anyway, oh yeah you could say Aaron because Aaron even though he debates religious topics he his channels mostly his specialty is evolution so Aaron actually would be besides professor Dave so they're okay Jay says James has there been any interest in a debate between Judaism and Christianity let me think about that not a lot of people have mentioned it there are not a lot of Jewish debaters I'd love to have Jewish debaters if they want to debate so if you know of anybody who's a Jewish debater Shmueli Botea wanted to have him that'd be cool haven't gotten to reach out yet but yeah there are other guests as well but likewise if you're a Muslim debater and you want to debate please let me know I'm pretty tired I gotta go here it's getting pretty late for me but I want to say thank you guys seriously for all of your love all of your support I'm going to make this fun I'm not just saying that to be corny I've got to tell you if you have not already I have put Mr. Green says no I just picked one of my favorite topics you're not going to get the same debate over science that you will with politics and religion bro like science debates do better for us than politics like they do like all things equal if you hold like because a lot of people don't realize that our power makes a big difference in terms of how well the debates do at modern day debate if we have like like that helps because for example if you have R&R he's got like 300,000 subs a lot of them are going to be like oh yeah sure I want to go watch and we are happy to have people even without a channel because we do it we oftentimes have people that don't even have a channel like they have zero followers so I'm not trying to emphasize this as being I'm saying if you hold the subscriber count equal on each side so let's say you had a thousand subscribers for each debater in a religion debate and likewise for a political debate the religion debate will get more views politics debates just right now are not as hot as they used to be I don't know I'm pretty convinced of that but I want to say thanks for being here it doesn't mean we won't have them we still will have them here and there maybe we're going to be a little bit more selective I want to say thank you guys for all of your love thank you for all of your support Biden's Balloons good to see you there in the old live chat Biden's Balloons I get it I get the joke I watch the news SB Penaz says here's a guaranteed evergreen work on a rate comfort versus destiny debate years of payoff that would be alright I'm going to write that down because I meant to do that a long time ago that would be epic let me write that down I'll make this happen I've got to do that I'm so glad you reminded me I wanted to do that for a while but I just forgot destiny versus a rate comfort I would love to do it that's a good idea I love it that's a cool idea thanks for doing that I wrote it down seriously I'm not on my list of things to do so tomorrow or is it Friday I'll try to make that happen thanks for coming by this should do a debate about the three stages of jihad wow that's controversial we could we've done more controversial what do you mean whether or not there are three stages or what the order is or whether or not they're bad for society tell me more and you don't have to do it in a super chat that's pretty interesting I agree I'm so tired it's 847 it should go thanks for your kind words thanks for all your kindness and allowance of free speech thanks so much can in Christ thanks for coming by let's see glad that you're with us I see you there in the old live chat and Richard Randolph Richards sorry tongue twister when I'm tired we're glad you're here Mafi Zilag 6502 glad to have you here I see you there in the old live chat flanker420 glad that you made it Sandy Pigeon good to see you progressive glad that you are with us as well as let's see Shekel smack thanks for dropping in here let's see I want to say thanks for your support I love you guys you guys make this fun Shekel smack says hosted debate on whether Subway has the best fast food sandwiches I'll be honest I think we both know that's not true I hate to say it but they don't have the best it's good I enjoy Subway and that is being kind of a bias guy for Subway do you guys believe me how biased I am a lot of you guys probably haven't seen this let's see let me tell you guys if we can get to we're at 443 likes we've got 642 watching if we can get to 500 likes I will show you my Subway for life tattoo on my back which is 12 inches by 12 inches please do please do hit like and show you guys this huge Subway tattoo like the Subway Sandwich Shop for real I'm not joking come on we've got 639 people watching that means it should be easy because that alone like if everybody who is watching right now hit like we'd have over 500 so thanks for your super chat this one coming in from Daniel Paul says does anyone wish to talk about Genesis being framed on the monomyth man of a thousand faces well I can see it that's a new topic to me I appreciate you saying that I am new to it it's juicy to say the least and then thanks Hannah Anderson for supporting us by putting in chat I just pinned it our modern day debate TikTok link so folks we are really close in early January we started trying to plug our TikTok and the reason is if we get to a thousand followers there we can stream which will be huge for exposure we have gone from 240 at the early part of January and it's been a month and we are at 949 so that's awesome you guys seriously to grow by about a thousand in a month not quite a thousand but yeah averaging over 500 per month that's awesome so thank you guys for your support epic we do appreciate that because we are excited to live stream there so thank you for your support that way it means more than you know it's exciting though thank you guys for your support we gotta go can and crisis you might have had a regret after what happened to Jared no actually I got my tattoo after Jared because Subway repudiated it like they said like hey we are not with Jared anymore and they gave him a boot so I am not worried about that let's see thanks Yeshua as king says I love you thanks for your support brother I love you too and but yeah you guys think I'm joking about this I'm serious hit that like button so I can show you guys this tattoo I'm gonna take my shirt off if we get to 500 likes and I'll show you this huge Subway tattoo I have it's only at 463 so we've gone up by 20 likes in the last couple of minutes and that's cool don't get me wrong but for real we can easily get to 500 likes because there are 615 people watching so for real homies servant girl thanks for coming by as well as Randall Richardson I'd love to get to at least 1000 subscribers on my youtube channel so far I'm at 650 I know that as I release more content more people gradually subscribe it's so true that being consistent with content is the real trick that makes a huge difference and but yeah I've got to tell you you are one of the most congenial people ever Randall for real so I know that your authenticity is very likeable and DJ Batman says you all need to see this tattoo it's really cool hit like we're at 472 so we've got up 30 likes in the last like 3 or 4 minutes you guys we're only 27 likes away from me bearing it all taking my clothes off on stream come on I'm actually you got to see this tattoo it's the real thing Dustin credible good to see you there I see you there in the old live chat says I got faith in you no need to show the tattoo that's funny I know you're right you can take my word for it or I'm serious I'll show it to you I'll take my shirt off on stream you don't get to see people take their shirt off on stream I mean unless you got only fans or something it's not that common so I am willing to do it though because like I said I really do I love this tattoo very proud of it Jack has says I'm scared to see the tattoo listen if you're feeling like am I gay if I hit the like button because I'm like encouraging a man to take a shirt off you're not gay you're only gay in the sense of being happy so I got to tell you this we uh you're it's not that you're you're not like doing it to see a man take a shirt off you're doing it to see the greatest tattoo there ever was we're 24 likes away for real folks we can totally do this I'm not doing it unless you get to 600 I mean it's a very reasonable request or not is it 500 so only 24 likes but I want to say thanks for all your support I'm going to run in just a couple of minutes so just a heads up but gg thanks for coming by says click like thanks for your support and then yeah I want to say for real thanks for your support though and then yeah that the tiktok link is pinned at the top of the chat if you want to help us out if you have a tiktok it's super easy all you have to do is click that modern day debate link for our tiktok at the top of the description box or the top of the chat and then when you do click it if you follow us there like I said it really does help so thanks guys I love you I hope you have a great rest of your night we're close we were at like 470 what is it 476 we're at 470 480 likes so thank you guys for that support I hope you guys have a great rest of your night keep zifting through the reasonable through the unreasonable and also if you do want to see that if you really think I'm right 482 so we've gone up was it like can't remember what it was but what were we at really 443 yeah so we've gone up like 40 likes we're so close but if you want to see the tattoo because I don't think we're going to get to 500 likes you like Misers are you being you being you don't want to give your likes away that easily one nation underground says 598 oh yeah oh yeah we do have we have 598 like watching which is why I'm wondering I'm like what's going on is it that I'm always wondering I'm like is it that there really are people that are like nope I'm not going to like I heard you say it I heard you ask but I'm not going to do it screw you I like your content but I'm you know not going to hit like are there those types I don't know I have no idea because I've also wondered like on the east coast right now it's going on 11 o'clock we have we've only got about 14 likes to go so we're actually close here so we're really close we're actually okay we've only got 13 likes to go so for real folks I'd be I've wondered like is it that people fall asleep because yeah it's close to man I'm so tired you guys it's close to 11 over there and what is that called the east coast and 50% of the united states is on the east coast no joke it's about 48% to be exact so that means like probably half the viewers because I don't know not not quite half because we've got an international audience but we're at 49 likes we've got we're at 490 likes so we're only 10 away okay now I'm actually feeling weird about taking my shirt off you don't have to hit like I mean I guess I'll do it if we really get there at 491 so we're nine likes away I'll do it to keep my promise although I'm like I'm feeling weird about it it just feels cold and I feel so naked do it but what I was going to say is H.J. Evans if we get to 499 likes and it stops it's going to ruin my day that's funny is what I was going to say was let me think about this I'm so tired I can't remember let me think about what I was going to say crap I'm tired let me just do something really quick I'm going to pop my melatonin I've got some melatonin I've got some valerian root that's my thing fair enough yeah so many pills we're at 497 that's pretty close so two seconds hold your horses I wasn't really sure if we could get to 500 that's a lot they're so late I got to go you guys Matthew says will you debate anything I don't know eventually we're at 502 hold on let me just take a swig of water because I've got pills in my mouth I'm going to show you the top too I'm not joking if you haven't googled it you should google if you haven't seen this story it's the real deal I'm not joking google subway fan gets subway for life here it is so can't see how well you can see it let me see so it's in celebration of the new subway series like sandwich subway 2022 I think it says and then series that's the real thing so it's wild it's crazy but oh that's real I'm not making it up did you think I was making it up have you really not heard about this story so I did it over the summer you guys thought I was joking so I did it over the summer and yeah that subway like that tattoo is not going anywhere it's the real deal so basically man I'm tired I gotta go you guys keeping me up late is subway said hey if you get this 12 inch by 12 inch tattoo we will give you subway for life and so I've been blessed with subway for life and now the reason though no joke I'm not exaggerating a significant reason why I did it is because we are doing debate con those are in person conferences so modern day debate it's our channel our podcast we have conferences as well now I can cover the lunches for those conferences with my free subway for life which is awesome so it's kind of a business investment no joke I'm not joking I'm dead serious that was a huge reason why I did it is because for us let's say it's $500 to cover lunch at a conference event so we were like hey let's let me go get this tattoo and then that'll cover our lunches for our conferences for modern day debate for pretty much the rest of our pretty much the rest of my life so pretty huge so I'm pumped about that and yeah for real it was an investment in modern day debate I want to say though thanks for your support thanks for your Dario says I get subway mostly every day it's a smart investment thanks for your support I appreciate that Gigi says what is your limit per day there's no limit per day so if I want to go there every single day I can the limit in terms of the quantity is $50,000 in subway so so yeah I think it's like I did the math I could get my favorite sub every other day I could get a foot long every other day for the rest of my it's for 40 years so pretty crazy but yeah let's see Samir Farzane says James would you contact a channel host to debate if I suggest you one maybe I don't know you can email me about it I got a lot right now I'm kind of pooped out but thanks for your support you guys Randall Richardson says James has subway cred it's like street cred but a lot more delicious thank you for that Randall seriously appreciate you guys love you guys thanks for all your support and Randall Richardson says James has subway cred thanks for that Richard Randall if I appreciate that thanks for your support you guys did Jared give you the tattoo yes in prison but yeah thank you for your guys support appreciate you guys I love you guys thanks for all the likes seriously appreciate your support of the stream and thanks for your support of modern day debate we're excited about the future my dear friends join us while we are small and we've hit the 93,000 subscriber mark but this is just the beginning of our story we have big things for the future and we're excited about the future so thanks for your support Bob says do you have to show it to get free food no I have a gift card so we'll want to say thanks for for thinking I love you guys seriously you guys are awesome I love you guys thanks for making this fun and I'll see you at the next debate keep sending out the reasonable from the unreasonable


Okay, let's wrap up tonight with a talk on tips and tricks of successful gardening. So here to help us grow our greatest garden ever this year is Kelsey Deckert. Kelsey is the NSU Extension Horticulture Agent in Burley County. She educates the public on caring for landscapes and gardens. She's the lead for the local master gardener program and she has a great passion for youth programming. Kelsey, welcome to the forums. Hey, thank you, Tom. Appreciate being here tonight. So I guess we're going to shift gears and move away from trees and go over to gardens. I'm going to go ahead and get my screen shared with you guys and start the PowerPoint. All right, as Tom said, I'm going to visit with you guys tonight about how to be successful with gardening and just how you can be successful in different types of gardens.  And I would say from that, I have had locally a lot of people get into gardening and get interested in gardening. And so I've had a lot of interest in how can you be successful with gardens and what is the best type of garden for different people. So to start off, I would always tell you, like, size does matter. Let's not bite off more than you can chew and consider the time you have to dedicate to a garden. So if anything, it's best to start small and manageable. Think about the location, really what you want to grow, what the light requirements are needed for that plant as well. And I would say that's probably one of the most discouraging things people get started with with their gardens is they take on. They want this really big, large garden. And then they realize, hey, you know what, during the growing season, we also want a camp, we have kids in umpteen sports or different activities. And pretty soon, you know, you have more weeds than you do have produce and that garden gets neglected. So if you're kind of on the fence about between two different sizes, I would say go on the smaller size to start. It's always very helpful to sketch out the outline of your garden. Not only is this going to help for crop rotation in future years, which is important to help manage if you have any insects or pests diseases within there. But sometimes to the labels that we put out in the garden, depending on what kind of label you have, they either get lost or if you're using like a marker or paint or something like that, it can get washed off. So having a plan is also going to help you just especially when those plants start to emerge to be able to differentiate what you have growing where. So I'm going to start off with container gardening. You know, this time of year and everything, we see people getting excited at spring fever forums and especially with the 70 degree weather, people are always itching to kind of get started and decide what route they want to go. And container gardening is a really good option. Any gardener of any level or age can definitely manage a container garden. And so it's even good if you have like limited if you're limited on space, especially people in town or maybe even like an apartment setting. And what's great too is if you have youth, you can always do like a themed garden to help get your youth active within the garden. So I'm going to cover kind of the types of containers, the soil, how to water and then fertilize a container garden to start here. So out there commercially, there is a lot of different containers available. You know, these are probably the two, two mostly widely common containers. You'll see on the left hand of the screen, you'll see a plastic container, which is going to be a great option. Most of these plastic containers have drainage holes and then they're very light. The other option that we see a lot of different ones would be like a terracotta or clay pot, and these are going to be heavier, but they are porous. So that's really nice about them as well. You know, you can also be nifty and crafty and decide to upcycle some sort of container. I have a mother-in-law who uses like mineral tubs that they put out for the cattle and everything to grow tomatoes and everything. So you could look around maybe you're somebody who doesn't want to get rid of things and upcycle a container. But the biggest thing that I would caution you one is you want to make sure to know what was in that container to start. So if there was anything that had chemicals or could be toxic, maybe you want to avoid that container or you need to make sure that it's thoroughly clean to start and then two, depending on what you're utilizing, making sure that it has drainage holes. Drainage holes are always going to be key for container garden. If it doesn't have drainage holes, make sure it is a container that you can put drainage holes in either by drilling holes in, punching holes in or even sometimes using like a hammer and a punch will also help as well. When we look at containers, you know, the question of soil comes up. And so if you're using a container that maybe you're putting on your porch or your balcony, a smaller type container, I would first and foremost tell you that the best option is to to purchase something commercially. That's going to be something that is sterile. So it means that it's weed and disease free. It's also going to be lighter. A lot of times if you try to go ahead and put garden soil within a container, it becomes very compacted and heavy over time. The one thing I would say, though, is if you were doing a raised bed. So I would consider that another type of container. And I personally have raised beds. You know, if you are looking at putting it directly on the ground and it's in the spot that you don't plan on moving, maybe you do look at putting like a topsoil that you have in your yard or a garden soil for that area. Over the time, it's probably going to sink each year an inch or two, so you might have to add more in. But again, if it's in a permanent structure that you don't plan on moving, you could definitely look at utilizing garden soil or topsoil if it's directly on the ground. As far as watering, when we are looking again at like containers that I showed pictures of earlier, they do tend to require more water than a traditional garden that's in the ground. Just as they're not able to hold moisture as well. It's sometimes recommended to water daily if Mother Nature isn't helping us out. And you want to make sure when you are watering that you're watering very thorough so that the water runs all the way through the container and out through the drainage holes. What I always tell people, the best way to check is just doing the field test. So taking your finger going about an inch deep into the soil.  If it's dry, give it a good drink. So fertilizing again, when you're using a commercial mix, there's a lot of different varieties out there, depending on what type of plants you're growing. But fertilizing, this is something with containers. Again, most likely they're going to require fertilizer because they're not going to have those nutrients that are soil in a in-ground garden provide. And so what I would say is look at doing like a water soluble fertilizer and starting out at 50 percent of the recommended amount. And then as those plants grow and everything, you can adjust that amount accordingly. Now, I did mention raised beds. And so one thing that I really like to talk about, especially if you are limited on space is square foot gardening. A lot of reasons of why you can why you would want to go this route, you're going to be able to maximize the space. It's going to be less labor intensive. The setup is extremely simple because you are maximizing the amount of plants you can put in one square foot. You also will have less weeding. It's easier to water. There's going to be no tilling. And then that crop rotation can simply be achieved by moving one square every year with whatever type of family of plants you have. And so here you can see like this is a great again, if you have a raised bed, how easy this setup is measuring that 12 by 12 square foot in there. And with raised beds and containers, the other thing that's really nice about these is if you do have any like physical pains, arthritis or anything like that, this can help alleviate some of that pain too. And that bending over that you would do traditionally in ground garden as well. So this is a chart that's available out there. You know, kind of talking to you about giving you different categorized plants based on their size. So if you'd have something like an extra small plant, you can fit 16 plants into one square foot. If you have smaller plants, it goes to nine, nine plants, medium size. They're going to go to four large is going to go to one. Now it does show extra large, but I'm sure any of you guys who have grown any of these extra large plants know that they take up more than two square foot. And I will say like, again, I have two raised beds at home. Not that I necessarily utilize square foot gardens, but I do grow like zucchini each year in my garden and it's only a 10 by 10. But I always make sure to put the zucchini towards the edge. And so it does trail off and a lot of times when I'm out there mowing, I just literally have to move those vines over while I mow close to that garden. So if we're going to switch gears and we're going to look at now what we can do to be successful with an in ground garden. Again, like I said earlier, let's make sure that we're starting out in probably a smaller garden than a larger garden where it's going to get really discouraging fast. Best watering practices, lawns, gardens, we all require. They all require about an inch of water per week. Again, that's if Mother Nature isn't helping us out. And so it's best to do a long, deep, thorough watering about once a week, getting that one inch of water down. Now you could go ahead and split it up, you know, maybe twice a week and do a half inch at a time. I have a picture of a soaker hose, which is a really good option because when you are watering, regardless if it's in ground or a container, you want to water at the base of the plants. And a soaker hose is going to help you achieve that. The only thing that I would say is a big downfall with a soaker hose is if you do have a larger garden and you do have to move that hose, it definitely can get a little muddy and messy in that garden. So if you don't have that or you don't want that to deal with that mess, just use a regular garden hose and water at the base of the plants. Try to avoid that overhead watering as it will help prevent. It'll help promote disease and also spread disease from the splashing of the irrigation that you have. Now weeding, you know, I visited with a couple of new gardeners in the last few years and some of the struggles that they always talk about is weeding, which I feel like is every garden gardener's problem out there is the weeding. So there's a few different ways to combat this. What I would say is try to be proactive as you see weeds pop up. Go ahead and hand pull them. That'll be your best, but you could also use mulch. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about mulch on the next slide. But we really do want to attack the weeds as they emerge just because weeds can also harbor insects and disease. And so again, it'll help promote a healthy garden and stuff. I always get the question every year, you know, with weeds, especially like creep and Jenny and stuff of, you know, what is the best method for controlling weeds? And so I would say mechanically or cultural is going to be your best option. Chemical is not recommended just due to, you know, you are eating that produce and everything. So sometimes people are like, I just I can't handle it. What can I do? And so if you're if you're really desperate, you could look at spot spraying like glyphosate. I even know of some people who maybe get out like a paintbrush and brush it on some of the weeds. You just have to be careful that the conditions are right when you are utilizing that because you could have drift. And if it gets on any unintended plants, you could have herbicide injuries. So first and foremost, try to get out there and try to try to go ahead and combat them as they appear. Now, I mentioned mulch and mulch is going to be a really good option not only to help with weeds, but it's also going to conserve moisture within the garden. So what do we look at for a mulch? You know, Todd mentioned earlier, no rock mulch. We don't want rock mulch. I can't even imagine gardening with rock mulch, so not an option. You want to look at something organic, whether that's like some wood chips or like people. A lot of times in gardens, we'll use shredded newspaper and that works really well because then, you know, if you do till, you can go ahead and till that in in the fall. Strahd, that that's good as well. I know that I personally like when I'm working with like flower beds and stuff. I like the cocoa bean shells. Not only are they going to be something organic that decomposes really nice, but they're going to be a nice brown in color and have a nice chocolatey smell to them. So I will say the one thing that's disappointing is I used to get those at Minards locally and they don't sell them anymore. So I've been having a harder time finding that. But again, mulch can definitely help. People will utilize using grass clippings as well. And so grass clippings are a good option. But again, there is some area of caution on that, you know, making sure that you haven't sprayed your lawn at all or treated it with herbicide to keep down weeds there. Because again, I've seen too many gardens that people wonder what's going on with their tomato plant that's twisting and tightly curling. And you can see, you know, grass mulch rate along it and those clippings have been treated with some sort of herbicide. So if you've sprayed in your yard, don't go ahead and use those clippings, avoid those clippings. But if you don't spray, you know, that's an option that you can go ahead with. Equipment, equipments can be extremely helpful, especially as a first time gardener or even somebody who is very well experienced. So just not forgetting about some of the tools out there to utilize.  Even a measuring stick, if you want to measure out your rose. Excuse me, there's so many out there ergonomic gardening tools that can really help people again, who have maybe some physical ailments, whether it's arthritis, joint pain. One of the most popular ones that I would say is really worth your bang for your buck is a garden kneeler. So a lot of times you'll see them. They have handles and you can actually flip them. You pull out the handles, you can flip them. So it's a bench that you can sit on or you can turn it up where there is handles. And then it's got cushion and padding for your knees. And you also got that extra support when you are lifting yourself off of the ground. So again, if you're going to start with gardening or, you know, ways to maybe make gardening a little more enjoyable, take a look at what's out there for equipment to maybe make it less labor intensive for yourself. It's always good to think vertical. Getting those plants off the ground will lessen the number of problems of disease and damage from wildlife. It's going to encourage airflow and sunlight and also reduce the humidity around the plants. Again, just going to help prevent any type of disease, harboring those insects, things like that. So anytime you can get, you know, plants to trellis, stake them up, that is going to be very beneficial. I've seen recently, which I think is pretty cool. A lot of people like trellising cucumbers are using cattle panels to grow and train plants to go up on them. And some I've even went to a homeowner here locally that had some smaller squash growing across a cattle panel that she arched. And she told me she actually found some clips to help train it to clip the vines as they grow. I think she found them online at Amazon. So again, think vertically, try to get those plants up, try to help them get more airflow and sunlight through them. I also tell people it's always beneficial to go ahead and grow recommended varieties. So Tom does every year his home garden variety trials. And he goes back to you guys out there across the state, which are the best varieties for North Dakota gardeners. So go ahead and take a look at that online. And you can see what his recommended varieties are for 2024. The other thing is, is if you are buying seeds, make sure you're buying it from a reliable source. It's also best not to use seed that's been over a year old just because it's not going to be as viable. If you are doing any transplants and you're at the store, look for them that are very healthy looking. Look for those that have grown that aren't small or pale in color. Those are usually going to be like a weaker one. If you do end up with leftover seed, you can store it. I would recommend storing it in like a refrigerator in an airtight container that'll again help keep it till next season and make sure that's in a container that's going to stay dry. And then I also tell people, you know, make sure you're attracting your pollinators. So plant some flowering plants throughout the season. Make sure you have something that's flowering in spring, something that's flowering in mid-summer and fall. And I just have a few listed. There's a lot more out there that are listed that you can go ahead and attract some pollinators. And you can see this was actually a community garden plot. There was some butterfly, both a butterfly and a bee on some zinnias. Now, the other thing besides weeds that can be troublesome is pests. And so again, let's look at some varieties that may be disease and pest resistant. Make sure that you are thinning out properly, that you're keeping those weeds down. You're staying out of the garden when it's wet and that you're rotating your crops. If you do need to utilize pesticides, there are some that are, you know, like low residual, low impact, that are safe and more natural side. So look at using those as an option. And then, of course, follow that label accordingly. That will tell you how to apply and when to apply. Think about the natural enemies. I tend to get this one every so often of what kind of insect this is. And this is a lady, ladybug that we commonly call in a larval stage there. And so again, we have a lot of natural enemies. So maybe before you go ahead and decide to go chemical, think about the cause and effect of using chemicals on that as well. I only have a few more slides here to get through. The other thing that I see here in North Dakota and especially I've had when I like myself, I live out of town or even in some of these community plots, excuse me, are some of these other rodents that are an issue.  The ground squirrels can be a problem and pheasants as well. And so the most common to that I hear people wanting to, you know, keep out of the garden is going to be our old bugs bunny friend and the deer Bambi out of there. So there are some plants out there that can deter rabbits and deer. And so here's just a list, very brief. You can, again, look online for some more detailed lists. And I will say, like, it's a great option to look at some of these plants. But however, if you have a rabbit or a deer that's hungry enough, you're not going to stop them from eating something. So just keep that in mind. What I would say is if you have some high valuable plants, plants that you really don't want the deer rabbit, make sure that within your landscape, you're putting them in a high traffic area. If you have a lot of movement, high traffic, that's going to deter the deer and rabbits out of there. I get the question about scare tactics. So, you know, putting up the fake owl, putting tinsel or pie tins, wind chimes in trees or by gardens, does that help? And I really like to say this is kind of a temporary solution.  Animals are going to be curious. They're going to stay away for a little bit, but they're also eventually going to get used to this that it's not going to scare them anymore. So probably not the best option out there. There are some different repellents. They're kind of put into two categories, a contact and an area repellent. So contact is going to be applied directly to the plants. It's going to make the plant taste bad. Area is going to be placed in a problem area, and it's going to repel by very bad odor out there and stuff. So I know if anybody's been to Tom's previous talks, he always talks about working at United Tribes College and using like a liquid fence and how that was very useful around like apple trees, and it literally did create a barrier between those trees and the deer coming into them. If we look at the most effective option, it's going to be fence. And so for deer, you want that eight feet high. Woven wire is going to be best. You can also utilize electric fence, but you're going to need several strands. I mean, think of it, deer jump, deer can crawl underneath. So that's why you would need several strands for our bunnies.  So just the diameter between the holes there. You want one inch or less. If you have con tails in the area, you want to go ahead and make that about 24 inches tall. If you got a lot of jackrabbits, go ahead and up that to 36 inches. And then you also want to bury that fence about six inches deep. You know, this is the most effective, but it's probably the most expensive route as well. So just take that into into consideration. And then lastly, before I take any questions here, I just tell people make sure that you are harvesting at peak quality and store things properly. Extension, especially under-use extension. We have a lot of publications out there on preservation and proper storage of different fruits and vegetables. You know, if you are getting towards the end of the year and we have that potential frost, there are a lot of fruits and vegetables, too, that you may be able to go ahead and get harvested before that frost that will ripen off the plant or off the vine. And so like two examples would be like a pumpkin and a tomato. If they have a blusher color, they'll go ahead and ripen off that vine. So with that, I will go ahead and take questions. OK, Kelsey, good. We have a question about using calm manure in container soil. And this gardener added old calm manure to the container. And it really seemed a good good job helping with the growth and health of the plants. So now this person's wondering, should they add more of this old calm manure to the containers? And how do they know how much of organic matter to add to a container? That's a great question. And so to start, I would say, have you been noticing any problems like a reduction in productivity of your plants? If you think it just needs a boost, I would go ahead and start with a soil test and see what your levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are of that soil before going ahead and adding anything additionally. What if it's like in a pot, a container like that? Not a respect, but like a pot. Do you have a recommendation about should they be adding a little bit of manure to a flower pot? You know, if they've done in the past, they haven't seen an issue. The only thing that concerns me is like what state that cow manure is at. You know, if it's very old and composted to the point of being like a soil, then yes. But if it's on the side that maybe not, you know, I would I would definitely be a little more hesitant of adding that. OK, good. How about do you need to rotate plants in a container garden? If it's something that you can do, it definitely can be helpful. You know, sometimes people have their die hard plants that they're going to plant in that container year after year. I would say if you haven't had any problems in there, there's no reason not to plant that again in that container. But if you have the option of doing some rotation, it's it's it's definitely going to help in that sense, if there's ever been any concerns of it. OK, how about are there any flowers that can be used to repel pests, like, for example, the cabbage moth? I don't know of anybody on the cabbage moth or insect wise. I don't know if you do, Tom, but I'm not sure as far as insects, which plants I know people talk about, like in the summertime, you know, what they dub a mosquito plant out there to help with mosquitoes. But that, you know, I don't think there's any research backing that. I was taught that the cabbage moth has such a good sense of scent that it can smell a single cabbage plant a mile away in a forest. That's how strong. And so the key is to just monitor your cabbage. Don't rely on flowers until you see those dancing white moths and then get them with a safe insecticide. OK, how about damping off? Is damping off? Can you get damping off by using a soaker hose? Like if you. So I suppose if they're meaning like they put a transplant in or planted seeds, you could, of course, get that. Anytime you have too much moisture, you can have damping off when you start plants. Yeah, that's especially when the plants are young, right? That's when they're really susceptible to that damping off.  What happened? Interesting. You know, it could be a little bit too much moisture in that area. I would say one thing that would be beneficial on that is just like at the end of the season, like raking that area, too, just to promote a little bit of the turnover in there. But I would say just towards the bottom, I probably had a little bit too more too much moisture and stuff. And when you rake it, it smells good, right? Smells like chocolate. So I like the smell of it. Bonus. How about this person likes using straw mulch on tomatoes and the rest of the garden, but the weeds can still go through the straw. So how often you put down straw in the summer? Yeah, that's a good question.  You know, it depends on how much you're putting on, I suppose, to start on what that weed control is. And, you know, an organic mulch isn't going to say that you're not going to have any weeds to start. You definitely can still get weeds. And so as those weeds again emerge, I would try to go ahead and just cultivate them, pick them out. That's right. How about you have a feeling about a landscape fabric in a garden? Yeah, so some people will utilize that in like a no till situation. It works really nice. It works really good for a weed barrier. The only thing on my own personal end that I would be hesitant is, is I've done that in situations.  And I don't like voles or mice, so that is not for me. How about you like slugs? Does anybody like slugs? I think they could be edible. I'm not sure. But do you have an idea about how do you control slugs? Yeah. So there's some different products out there directed definitely for slugs. I think one of them is like sluggle. You know, you can always do baits and get a pie tin out there, put it at level ground and then pour in some old beer, like you like to say, and it'll attract them and they'll have a happy life on the way out they go. Yeah, if you have to drown, that's probably a good way to drown. But don't waste your beer on a slug. Use like slug or iron phosphate is a good, is a good safe way to control slugs. How about have you ever grown a rosemary plant? I have not. I've never, I've grown them, but I've never tried to survive winter with them. But this person grew rosemary in an 18 inch plastic planter. And they, when they grew it, they sunk it into the ground such that the plant was still 12 inches above ground. So it was kind of halfway buried. And then as a winter approach, she lifted it out of the garden and put it in an unheated garden shed for the winter. So do you think it might survive and come back next year and bloom? Might sounds like a good, good experiment. She's trying. She should report back to us and let us know. Yes, we expect a full report next year at Spring Fever. Yeah, I think it might work. Is you have a good time here to add manure to the garden? Yes, a lot of times people will look at, you know, either fall or spring. And I would say those are kind of the most important times people want to add in like a compost, you know, fertilizer they might do later. But again, Miner, I would probably just do it in the spring if you're tilling up the area or in the fall until it in. OK, we got a few questions on mulching here. Can you use dry leaves as a mulch in a vegetable garden? I don't see why not. There you go. And I think something that's kind of like like oak leaves, I think it'd be especially good because it's a little bit aerated, whereas a maple leaf might melt down a little bit. How about you have a feeling about pine needles? Can we use pine needles for mulch? Yeah, so people always have the question about, you know, like pine needles killing off things and changing the acidity of the soil and everything. It takes a lot of pine needles and a lot of years for them to sit on the surface to change that acidity or that soil pH. I don't think I mean, I don't again, seem of reason why you wouldn't or you couldn't utilize them, but. I don't know. Do you have an opinion on that one, Tom? Yeah, I think, first of all, why I think the pine tree wants those needles. So don't take that's the first thing. So why do you take them away from the pine tree? Because that's your organic fertilizer for the pine tree. And I need those. They in a garden or they can they can be used for mulch, but they're not going to cause much harm to or they're not going to acidify the ground negligible, negligible. So forget about, don't worry about that. But here's about another mulch. How about we think about those rubber mats that you wrap around trees? Ever seen those? Yeah, I have.  But as that tree grows and everything, it's going to eventually get to the point that you got to remove it. So to help get it established and started, I think it's fine. But once your tree starts to get closer to where it's the diameter of that hole, it's starting to get close to that, remove it. Yeah, as you say, like the natural mulches are the way to go, not the unorganic. Yeah. How about any secret recipe to grow carrots in a raised garden? Like you ever use those pre seeded strips to sell carrots? I have not. I've done carrots in my raised bed and I just directly seed them. But I also like my raised bed that I have at home. I do the short ones. I do short carrots in there. And they germinate with no problem. They germinate with no problem. The hardest thing about carrots is thinning them, you know, so many seeds. So it's definitely if you have, there are like some little tools out there again that are like you can put seeds in and it controls the amount of seeds that come out as you seed them and sow them in. That might be an option, but I don't have that. I just directly seed out my place. You've got a green thumb. There's a lot of people who sell carrots and it just doesn't germinate because they take they can take more than two weeks to germinate. And they're so shallow when you sow them. So you have to just have to keep moisture there.  There are pelleted carrot seeds out there and commercial growers do that. But you have to make sure the soil moisture stays consistent. Otherwise, the web prongs with the pelleted seeds germinating. On this read the question. Do you know of a good site for a high bed planter? Must be like to buy it or where's a good place to put it? Or where's a good website site? Yeah, like is it a location? Oh, you know, again, online, you can find a lot of options as far as raised beds and and everything or like doing yourself kits out there. How about some raised bed materials that you recommend that I would recommend? You know, people always ask every year about treated wood. No problem going out there with treated wood. That's what mine are that I did. And I have one that's a vegetable and one that's flour. So treated wood is going to be a great option just in the sense that we are in North Dakota and we have a lot of different weather patterns and stuff. So it's going to be durable and long lasting. You know, I've seen some raised beds that are used like the corrugated tin that look really nice. People will utilize that. That looks good. I would say whatever you kind of look at different, there is a lot of different materials and it just depends on maybe what you're accomplishing. Good. OK, that's all our questions. So thanks, Kelsey. It was great talk. Really learned a lot. We're going to have a great time this year. I'm inspired now.


Good morning and welcome to week two of the ASP summer equilibrium on S2S science and application. This week our first speaker will be Magdalena Alonso Balmasera. Magdalena is a principal scientist at ECMWF and also the head of the earth system predictability section. Her interests lie in the predictability and initialized seamless predictions and ocean coupled reanalysis. She has made numerous important conclusions in the field of ensemble generation, the analysis and evaluation of coupled reanalysis and ARC interactions and in particular ocean initializations. She's involved in a number of committees and scientific steering groups, too many to list them all. Also Magdalena is known to throw great parties where she is serving specialties from Spain like Manchego and Rioja. Welcome Magdalena. Thank you Judith, good that you remember. I'm glad and thank you Judith and Anish and the organizers for inviting me to be this presentation that is going to burst on the initialization and forecast the strategy for seamless forecasting. So this is a bit the outline of my talk. I will start setting up the scene with some introductory concepts and then I will talk about initialization shock forecast drift and calibration and then most of the talk is going to be as an example the initialization. What do we do for the initialization of the ocean as an example of a slow component of their system. I would like to also compare two initializations and forecast the strategies used if you want to indicate that and more in seamless approaches and if I have time I would like to talk about ensemble generation strategies for seamless prediction. So probably by now you would have seen last week that the basis for forecast beyond weather time scales resides on the properties of a system with two time scales with multiple time scales. The first time scale point of view which would be the atmosphere. This prediction beyond weather is basically a boundary condition problem or the predictability of the second kind of loaded dice by which the forcing exerted by what the atmosphere considers boundary conditions changes the atmospheric circulation modifying the large scale patterns of temperature and rainfall and so the probability of occurrence of certain events deviates significantly from climatology. But what are those boundary conditions from the atmosphere? There would be a ceasefire temperature, moisture, snow, radiative forcing, stratosphere maybe. But these components in most of them in their system models are not boundaries are really prognostic variables. So from the point of view of this slow component the predictability beyond weather is also a predictability of the first kind that means an initial value problem. So we need to visualize the slow component. And before I go into full details I would like to remind you that these seamless forecasts they have an additional component is not only predicting that this is an example but this would be an ensemble prediction for today that we know several realizations to estimate the PDA of the possible occurrence. But this is not enough. We need to compare it with what is called a climatological PDA that would be the black car that we estimate by issuing serious or conducting a series of forecast or retrospective forecast back in time to estimate this climatological PDA of the model. And the information content is really in the difference between the model climatology and today's forecast. To initialize this for this climatological PDA we need initial conditions for this forecast and the quality of these initial conditions would depend very much on the quality. They usually come from reanalysis and the quality of the reanalysis. So that's why reanalysis are an integral part of a seamless forecast. Why do we need this reforecast? I mentioned mostly the calibration or just contrasting what is today from the traditional climatology of the model. So it's calibration but it's also for detection of extreme events and here we can see the predictions at two weeks of the Canadian heat wave for instance or a seasonal forecast the seasonal mean. We use them and this is very important for a skill assessment. It's not enough to issue a forecast. You need to have some knowledge of how good the quality of that forecast. Does the reforecast are used for that as well? Then the reanalysis they are used for monitoring climates and of course the reforecast and are very good data set for predictability and evaluation studies and to see whether the model has error or what are the future directions for improvement. So what are the requirements arising from this reforecast? So what do we need is consistency. This reforecast and the real-time forecast need to be consistent so the calibration makes sense. We also need temporal consistency in the past and faithful representation of a wide range of time scales so the skill assessment makes sense and the understanding of what is going on makes sense and this is quite challenging especially the presence of model error and a changing observing system. It is obvious but I would like to illustrate it. We also need accurate and physically balanced estimating and associated uncertainty so the observational information can be propagated into the forecast and so the relevant processes can be reliably quantified and how far back as far back as possible and the limitation there is usually computer resources. So the initialization I like this picture because what we are doing in the forecast is basically two ways translation from the observations into the model does the initialization stage. Then we propagate the information into the future and as the forecast stage we do it in model space and then we do the calibration stage that is the translation from the model information into observation space. The techniques both initialization and calibration are very similar they are based on Bayesian statistics. In the initialization we call it data simulation and this is going to be the topic of the town where the observations collapse the uncertainty of the possible realizations but they also correct them in the state where we are. This is just a very idealized cartoon of an ensemble of data simulation but and this initialization step is really what distinguishes a forecast from a projection or a model simulation. This is essential in the forecast and indeed it helps it has more information and forecast than a projection or a simulation because it has that connection with the real time but this initialization may not be perfect. For instance models are not perfect and that can create problems and observations are insufficient and the data simulation which is the translator itself has deficiencies and this is you can imagine somebody translating or a real translation in the early times that sometimes the translations are far from meaningful even if they are very objective but they need a little bit more. So this errors in this translation can give rise to problems with initialization shock so this cartoon shows a little bit the problems that we may have with initialization shock drift and how these two things can affect the scale. Imagine that we have the real world that is this blue line this is some schematic of the face space we have the model attractor of the model climate which is different from the real world because models will always be deficient representations and as the forecast we launch a forecast and the forecast the forecast slowly will go from the real world into the model climate that could be ideal if we have this sort of behavior is ideal because during this time before it reaches the model attractor we are going to have information about so the forecast will have information but this is not always the case sometimes this drift may not may not be monotonic and in fact we can have that's what we call initialization shock. So it's not monotonic in some direction of face space and in fact during this period of time the error is worse than if we had say the model climatology for instance this can create problems at times especially if we have nonlinearities imagine that we have the system is nonlinear which is and if this initialization shock is large enough that kicks the nonlinearities we may end up having a convergence of solution to a state that is different from what we would have had with the initialization so we need to be careful. So what I mean basically is difficult to define but I try to say that the consequences of initialization shock because it implies that the data simulation process has created imbalances in the initial conditions not supported by the model physics and the observation information is rapidly lost the adjustment that deteriorates skill. What causes this initialization shock that could be the efficient data simulation as I mentioned just bad translation and that it could be because we don't have sufficient physical constraints on the data simulation or data simulation is trying to put the scales that the model cannot support or we are giving too much weight to the observations or the observations that put quality control and end up in wrong observations being unsimulated. So these steps are quite important the weight that we give to the observation the quality of the observations and the balances in the data simulations. There are also reasons other reasons why the initial conditions can lead to initialization shock is if this had been produced with different model cycles that the one that is used by the forecast this could happen if we use separate initialization or uncoupled data simulation where the observations and the observations are produced differently separately but in coupled mode when they are together or we use different model cycles that they are not related to each other and we did some exercises to quantify this that was in the medium range and what we could see is the largest contribution of the initialization shock is when we use different models from the ones that have initialization but coupled data simulation also contributes so this is the RMS error with different models this one is the same model cycle but separate initializations and coupled initialization and the blue line is with coupled initialization so we know that there is a path for improvement and that's where we are and so what about drift so much about initialization shock what about drift we say that this is an example from seasonal forecast where we see nino 3.4 and so an index of ensouled surface temperature with different models and those are some of the models that we use operationally and you can see that we have biased in the first moment of the distribution drift in the first moment of the distribution that is called biased and we see how this depends on lead time and it grows with lead time and this depends also on the model cycle and the model resolution and it also depends on the phase of the seasonal cycles so it's not always the same if we initially lies in November the drift that we may get is different that if we initialized in May we also have errors in the second moment of the distribution and this is can be characterized by the amplitude ratio the interannual variability between the forecast interannual variability and the observations interannual variability and you can see here these two colors scales are the same blue the one with colder drift is the one that has larger amplitude in the seasonal and then larger error in the estimation of the amplitude and we know that this is because there are non-linearities that link the mean state the variability the cold tongue and the strong thermocline feedback basically so why do I say that first is that there are different sort of errors and in this case is first moment and second moment of the distribution but if we have errors in the non-linearities then the basic calibration of removal of bias will not be because the variability is affected so this bias correction of posteriori only of the mean is insufficient if the system is non-linear and then the other question is that one common perception is that while initialization shock depends on the initialization the drift depends only on the model but it's not true these two are intrinsically linked and we can see that the same model with different initializations can go to different states and different drifts so that's important to get in mind when we want to diagnose model errors okay I know there are many considerations but I think it's a multifarious aspect of problem this initialization so I wanted to give the full picture first so now we come to this issue we want to initialize the slow components of their system so how do we do it optimally so in the atmosphere the atmospheric scientists are very good with optimality and they have this for the bar and tangent linear and they are able to optimize the initial conditions so they produce the best forecast with an objective metric so elite time a variable and a region they tend to use geopotential height or the energy of the of the system and it's you can evaluate the initialization very quickly for the slow components more difficult because the tangent linear and the adjoint usually don't they are not enough or we don't have them but we decide to use common sense if you want and these practical requirements we want to the initial conditions should represent accurately the state of the real world and projecting to the model attractor so those are two requirements this is difficult in the process of model error as we have seen because of the initialization shock and drift but the idea is to minimize this initialization shock there are the other practical requirements arising from calibration that the error should be as stationary as possible and we also would like to have consistency between the re forecast and the real time so we have re-analysis and that we try to do as consistent as possible and representation of uncertainty so I'm going to illustrate these aspects with the ocean and here we are changing that we want to predict Enso and so okay which part of the ocean and here we see a half meter of sea surface temperature anomalies daily SSD anomalies on the right and on the left is the depth of the 20 degrees of thermocline anomalies and you can see here and there is this big linear and that happened around 2010 11 can we predict this so if you see in the depth of the 20 degrees of therm you can see the scalving waves propagating both in this case positive in this case negative from east to west the point of this slide is just to say it's not enough to say okay then ocean will have larger thermal energy we only need to initialize the mixed layer we also need to initialize the dynamics so because the dynamics is predictable and in fact it gives the equator is the main source of predictability at this time scale so how do we go about so most of these slow components not only the ocean but the land you can think around the same of the sea ice we need the model and the atmospheric flux is run atmospheric free analysis those are the best and the first guess if you want and with that you get already quite a lot but it's not enough we also need ocean observations and that they are put together with the ocean model with data simulation methods and in the case of the ocean we have this ocean observations the main one is sea surface temperature but also in situ observations xpt's argo moorings and altimeter so why do we need why do I say that we need data simulation well we have large uncertainty in the flaxis and also in the models that can lead to large uncertainty in the subsurface and here what you can see I don't know if you see this and plot those are the equatorial atlantic the windestress anomaly between two different products and the equivalent uncertainty if you want time series of the upper ocean heat content which is quite large and the uncertainty is equivalent to the variability that we want to predict so the questions are does we have ocean observations can we constrain the ocean state and the answer is yes if we constrain use data simulation these two cars can get closer is that enough it's not enough so we want another two requirements we want to improve the ocean estimate not only that there is less uncertainty but the estimate is better and we want that this improve estimate improves the seasonal forecasted scale or the forecasted scale so we know I mean this is an example if you look at the ocean analysis and the assimilation increments this is an example we know that these assimilation increments have a mean and I mean difference which is not what the methods are not the describe the data simulation methods are not they don't target model error usually but we see however that the mean assimilation increments correct I mean it corrects the total ocean heat content and the slope of the thermo climb in this case so this is important because it has implications for the temporal variability as I am going to say right the observing system is changing continuously and here you see the observation distribution on June 1982 that was a very I think it was a war meteorological year or something like that and we had an unprecedented then unprecedented coverage of ocean observation in 2005 the observations you can see with the advent of cargo we have observations almost everywhere in the southern hemisphere and the subtropics and these are time series of how the different components of the observing system has been changing I mean you can guess where I'm going if the model has errors and the observations are changing what will happen with the main state of the estimation of the inter-annual variability from reanalysis and here is what we see this is one example one of the first early works that I did when we were doing the first reanalysis at ECMWA ocean reanalysis we had one we always call one experiment that is controlled that one experiment that has induced data simulation and ocean course with observed SSTs and forcing and we could see the depth of the thermo-cline in the equatorial Atlantic it would be this red or black line however in the experiment with simulation when the Pira termuris were introduced they produced a huge jump and they corrected the state the diffuse and the depth of the thermo-cline in the in the Atlantic this jump is huge and if you don't know where it comes from it may be mistaken by spurious variability so you want to avoid that and the way that with the advice to avoid that was to say okay let's take the information of the observations now and try to extrapolate it into the past and this is basically by adding a bias correction on the on the tendencies of the mother and this bias correction back to terms one that it was a priori estimated from the recent observations and the other that it was estimated online is estimated online in fact and we apply this term retrospectively and in fact if we apply that we avoid or ameliorate these problems with the jumpiness and that's what you see here in the in the blue curve so just to give you an idea this is the from Argo period we can get these terms these correction terms that we apply to the mother and the observing system will always be changing so for reanalysis not only ocean but also atmosphere we really need to have these corrections on the tendencies and by extrapolating the observation information into the past this is polemic and it's by no means without flow but it's very important so once we do that it would if you remember one of the questions that I had is that's this data simulation improves the internal variability and when with records of essential climate variables to see whether we improve the temporal correlation and that's what you see here this is the control when we don't assimilate observations when we assimilate observations we get better correlation with altimeter c level of course if we assimilate altimeter c level this correlation improves further which is not so surprising but what is the challenge here would be with the that the to be able to project the altimeter information that is only on the sea surface into the depth and this is it has a little effect not that much but it improves the ministry them in the surface so those are the criteria that we do if you ever go into this game of doing of initializing similar small and the final the final requirement is does the data simulation improve the forecasted scale and again we only have always have one run initialize without observation that would be the blue and the red is when assimilate observations at it and improves and then we are very happy and this shows that in our current system it would be system five this shows how the skill of the system on and so has been improving over the years this is the system five if we didn't assimilate observations we will have the skill of years back so the assimilating the ocean observations is equivalent of 15 years of progress on model development i say that because it is quite important i think it's the it's hard that is the way to go and there are many other attempts of saying okay maybe we don't we only need sst you can imagine and i think that was and this syntax system and for the kdal forecasting sometimes it's inside if you only have sea surface temperature and you have a couple model where you nudge the sea surface temperature that should be enough to initialize the kdal or seasonal forecast or we tried to quantify and to see whether it was true and of course this the answer could be system dependent but what we see in our system is that the ocean observations so first atmospheric observations are essential so atmospheric analysis are essential and that would be the contribution what they call wins here ocean observations are also very important and the the combined true it increased the scale by 25 percent in several areas the only area where that is it was problematic at that time was the quatorial atlantic and i think if we see this is because there is something wrong with our methodology so this is an area to pay attention and try to improve the methodology not try to remove the observation that's so which other approaches exist for initializing our system predictions so at the sometime ago and perhaps now as well we have these two different paradigms that happen because we have the real world and the model world for the medium range we tend to initialize everything on the on the real world and we call this full initialization and being close to the real world is perceived and as an advantage because the model is slowly drifting to its own mean state and that's the figure that I showed at the beginning the this process of drifting means that we have a skill at the early times and the decadal predictions at this some years ago things have been changing but at the time that we did this work it was very controversial the what it was proposed was to do a normal initialization to avoid forecast drift and the idea would be to initialize about the model attractor or mean state and that was called anomaly initialization but then if we go for this dichotomy or what happens with the seamless forecasting no it would not be possible really where is seasonal is it closer to the real world or to the model world so the other comment is that anomaly initialization doesn't mean necessarily initializing in the model attractor so in fact sometimes it's not at all and you can achieve initialization in the model attractor with full initialization but we have seen so far or I hope I have conveyed that the full initialization that is the one that I presented he had two main caveats or problems is one is the initialization resulting from unbalanced state and the non-linearities and non-stationaries so let's try we did some work trying to compare this full initialization with anomaly initialization so the full initialization as I said is what we do in the ocean is as in the medium range forecast in the atmosphere except that the model bias is taken into account during the data simulation the apostrophe calibration of the forecast is needed and this calibration depends on lead time and on initial date so it's quite expensive because you have to do quite a lot of reforecast and finally if this initialization is uncoupled the model whatever we learn about the model drift during the data simulation can not be applied in the forecast which is a bit with coupled data simulation maybe we can estimate this bias during the initialization process and propagate the forecast what about the anomaly initialization I represented in this diagram and the idea is to conduct a long couple integration to estimate the model climate of this only one realization for many years and then you have initialized with an observed anomaly to superimpose the observed anomaly and then you get this information so what are the benefits and the cons and the and the pros so the original purpose was to avoid the expensive reforecast so if you have a look at these forecasting systems and the full initialization is much more expensive than the anomaly initialization because of the number of reforecasts in this case the model climatology doesn't depend so much on the lead time but this is not enough because with this long integration doesn't give you any idea of the skill of the system and you need to provide an indication of the skill so that's not enough you still need reforecast for assessment and the other thing is that calibration is still needed even if you do put the observed anomaly these models still drift and because they initially say the anomaly initialization is not always perfect and there are initialization shocks the other problem that it has is that you always need to define the anomaly so what happens if you have observations for first time you can unless you have a reanalysis you don't know what is that so this anomaly initialization indirectly always depend on some full reanalysis being there is something interesting regarding the bias is that this anomaly initialization acknowledge that there is model error during the initialization but we call it this the bias the algorithm for data simulation is called bias blind because it removes the bias instead of correcting so if you compare these two experiments in this case these two equations here we are removing the bias here we are correcting just to give you an idea of what are the pros and well the pros and cons the the algorithms I don't know how I don't want to rush you but if you could wrap up it would be great so that there's time for questions okay yeah just to say I don't I have some slides on ensemble generation but maybe I don't need to say much about it I will leave the slides with you basically what I want to say here is that for seamless to represent the uncertainty on the ocean instead of using optimal sampling which it could be possible but it will need modification the linear propagation or generalized propagations to compute the singular vectors what we do is more sort of common sense it's just that we know that we have uncertainty let's check take our knowledge of uncertainty and apply it so we apply each uncertainty what is the wind uncertainty what is the uncertainty and that is introduced by the spin up by the ssd if possible we try to put also p-c absorb solar radiation ci I mean all these things and we put this during the for during the production of the initial conditions we also sample uncertainty by perturbing the observation location or by doing random thinning instead of super oving that allows this is very good for ensembles because it allows using the observational information differently and finally that couple data simulation allows us to even with this simple scheme of perturbations it allows us to sample flow dependence perturbations flow dependent errors and I guess I don't want I have some examples of how the uncertainty on solar radiation is in a uncoupled analysis versus sorry uncoupled versus couple and also how this in ENSO how I'm going to go how with couple data simulation we can have this uncertainty deputation associated with the displacements of the convection and uncertain the wind the stress associated with the westerly wind bars and NGO that's all I wanted to say the couple model is very good I mean that's one of the advantages of couple data simulation flow dependent a natural way of representing the dependent uncertainty so so I want to finish now we have seen some criteria to design a good initialization for their system trying to reduce the initialization shock we have seen the needs for drift and calibration and the need for historical stable records of initial conditions consistent with the real time and we have also seen the importance of treating the model error during the data simulation processes and exploiting the observational information and extrapolating it into the past and I try to boil a little bit some examples on the initialization of the ocean for seasonal forecast but it's important to initialize the dynamical and thermodynamical processes and being aware that the data simulation changes the main state and so we need to treat the bias and that even if it's challenging it's worth a simulation I try to see what are different other alternative approaches and try to do a comparison between the full initialization and at the end very quickly I went about how to represent uncertainty and that's it thank you I thank you so much I would love to ask the question can you go through all the steps in the last section of your paper but I think maybe we do this in a full blown seminar because it's super interesting the whole issue about ocean initialization and and uncertainties