Quaker wins award for scientific modelling

'Before GMD there was no space for geoscientific models to receive the necessary level of peer-review scrutiny that delivers open, transparent science.'

A Quaker from Settle Meeting has won an award for her contribution towards science.

Julia Hargreaves was awarded the 2021 Union Service Award of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) for her scientific modeling. The Yorkshire Friend edited the EGU journal Geoscientific Model Development (GMD) from 2008-19.

Julia Hargreaves told the Friend that ‘a big driving force’ for her work was the ‘necessity to make climate science more open’. She said: ‘It is easy to be too far ahead of your time and get ignored, and even ridiculed. However, if you can take small steps always towards the goal, and take enough people with you at each step, then years later you can look back and see a revolution has, in fact, occurred. The surrounding structures are important too. The EGU is determined in its “bottom-up” attitude, always ready to experiment with new approaches. Despite all that, I had been feeling unappreciated, and it has restored my faith in human nature to see my contribution so clearly perceived by my colleagues.’

The citation for the award reads: ‘The idea that not only scientific results from geoscientific models should be published, but also that the development and source code of those models should be reviewed, very much stems from Hargreaves. Before GMD there was no space for geoscientific models to receive the necessary level of peer-review scrutiny that delivers open, transparent science, and model developers received little to no credit for their work. Now, such a place exists with GMD, and the geosciences have hugely benefited from this endeavour.’

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