Standing Wave

Epilogue

Kyōto, April 2030

As expected, the paper caused a storm, and not only in the climate modelling community: a carefully planned concerted news campaign of the five organisations involved made sure it made headlines in the international press for quite a while. kagetsuko went from anonymous postdoc to superstar scientist overnight. Even Lightman and Dymnikov gave interviews. It was after all an uplifting story, about an effort that was not only global but also spanned several generations. And the potential was very real: already, the improved predictions of extreme weather events have saved lives. In addition, the scheme improved the accuracy and resolution of global climate models as well, which helped to reduce the uncertainty on the predictions of global warming. This might seem rather futile, but it removed another arrow from the quiver of the deniers.

The published paper, “A novel scheme to improve the resolution of global circulation models with cloud feedback”, had twelve authors, one of them posthumous. The first author was Natsuko Suzumiya, our kagetsuko. The final three authors were Lightman, Chinchuluun and Dymnikov. I was pleased to see my friend from Glasgow got full authorship as well. klimagalka got an acknowledgement by name, and kagetsuko had added “a heartfelt thank-you to my dear fedi friends, who made this paper possible.” The algorithm had been officially named the “Suzumiya-Lightman-Dymnikov cloud feedback scheme”.

While I’m writing this, reflecting on the paper and its story makes me very happy. But at the time of its release, I was too weighed down by my own problems to share much in the joy of my friends. Looking back, my posts must have looked stilted and remote. And yet they were incredibly understanding and supportive, those strangers I had encountered by chance and never met in person. They helped me through the hard days and nights, and asked nothing in return. In particular Natsuko and I would talk often, and it was the help of her and her partner Chiharu that made my move possible. I ended up living close to Natsuko’s place of work in Uji, and they visit often.

Natsuko never mentions her family but Chiharu introduced me to her mom. She’s only a little younger than me but looks about sixty. She’s an uncomplicated person with a sunny disposition and a delicious Kansai accent. I have a real struggle to keep up when she’s talking but it’s always a lot of fun. At our first encounter she cheerfully informed me that she’d divorced her abusive, rokudenashiyarou husband twenty years ago and that she’d been very happy on her own. When she heard our story, she suggested that the four of us should go to a surfing contest together. Chiharu and Natsuko immediately chimed in and — somewhat to my own surprise — I found myself agreeing to join them.

So we went all the way to the Junior Open Surfing Championship at South Chikura Beach in Minamiboso, in Chiba prefecture. It was a fabulous weekend, gloriously sunny and warm, and sitting on that magnificent beach in their company, watching the waves rolling in from the Pacific and the exploits of the young surfers riding them, I felt profoundly at peace.