Under a Slippery Sky

Modelling atmospheric pollution during the pandemic by Robin Lamboll (ref: doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0883-0)

The sky was wounded. 

Ohona had never known an unbroken blue. For two generations now, the sky had been marred, snipped open by a giant crab claw, innards glistening as red as the dawn smearing the ocean waves with bloody light.

Ohona stood in the shallows, sucked in a mouthful of morning air and closed their eyes. As always, the air tasted of salt with hints of vegetable decay and a tang of fish beneath the mineral bouquet. But there was a new spice on the wind, as if someone had added too much pepper to the breakfast stew.

It was wrong.

Ohona raised their hands and splayed their fingers to catch the air like a spiderweb nets dew. The invisible currents curdled around their hands while terns and gulls welcomed the day with raucous screeches. Squinting against the dawn, Ohona studied the clouds feathering the sky. They sprouted in ragged bunches, fanning out from a fractured pinion jutting from the sky wound the Elders called the crease. 

That, too, was wrong.

According to the tales sung around the evening fires, the sky had folded the night the stars fell like diamonds poured from a jug. In the morning, the sky seemed to have been snagged by one of the fleeting stars, the clouds dog-eared by the aberration.

Ever since then, things began to change. A shifting pattern in the currents confounding the tide-talkers, murmurations starting later in the season, rains delayed disrupting the growing season. Each year, conditions worsened.

Now Ohona glared at the sky, their own insides sheared thin by frustration and dread. They were forbidden from studying the crease, from picking at the wound like a scab. The Elders believed it would fade if it were ignored. Ohona disagreed. The crease had only stretched wider; the changes in the world growing stranger.

A red dawn should’ve promised rain, sorely needed. Ohona only knew about the rainy season from stories. The last cyclone swept a deluge across the islands when their mother was a toddler. Since then, the air had been getting hotter and drier, the sea slipping away from the coast.

Ohona couldn’t remember the last time it had rained for more than the time it took to clean a fish. Crops were failing. Without bananas and vanilla, the Adjazi islanders had little to trade with the mainland and even less to eat. In their own lifetime, Ohona had seen blight spoil aubergine and peppers, reduce the yield of sweet potato, and decimate tomatoes. Some plants had been lost completely, ancient staples refusing to grow in eroded soil.

And it wasn’t only the rain that kept away.

The turtles hadn’t returned this year. Ohona didn’t think they’d be coming back. Fish and birds had been avoiding the atoll too, as if the schools and flocks knew the islands were cursed. If only the Elders would acknowledge the crease, perhaps then the Adjazi ’mancers could combat its effects.

Ohona splashed through the waves to perch on a rock smoothed by time and brine. Perhaps they were wrong. They were neither gifted nor trained to read the patterns of the tides and currents. Nor were they an expert on migration. Ohona couldn’t divine much from the slaughtered mess of a goat or flamingo, or speak with the island animals. They could only read the clouds. 

Ohona removed a leather pouch from the pocket of their shirt. At least kepho still grew in the marshes. The weed wasn’t good for much, but it eased the ’mancers into the trances necessary for divining. Just a pinch pressed between lip and gum was enough to open Ohona’s mind to the Ancestors and the hidden messages of the clouds. Any child could be taught to differentiate cirrus wisp from shaggy cumulus, but to know the secrets of the clouds required the right magic song and the intent of a honed mind.

As the kepho took effect, Ohona lay back on the rock, letting their toes trail in the water–binding them to the land–while they reached their hands to the sky. They sang as they wove their fingers through the air, thickening now into a visible tapestry. Beyond their fingers, the clouds stretched fibrous across the blue. All warped toward the glistening crease Ohona’s kepho-softened mind reached for with a questing finger.

They weren’t supposed to do it. They were supposed to focus their readings elsewhere, but every time Ohona sucked on kepho and dissolved into cloud-reading, they were led to the crease. They felt the Ancestors beside them now, guiding them upwards. Ohona’s spirit rose with the ghosts. Regardless of what the Elders said, this was the Ancestors’ will.

Ohona’s spirit soared higher until their fingers brushed the fold. It parted, revealing ruffled edges as if some great mussel were latched onto the sky from the inside out, a mouth slurping at the world above the Adjazi islands. Ohona ignored the frenetic thudding of their heart and delved deeper, using their fingers to peel open the crease and peer inside. 

Folds upon folds, one sky layered atop another, each a variation of blue and cloud. Ohona’s perspective shifted, the sky beyond the crease widening to show an expanse of familiar ocean, a scattering of islands, the smudge of mainland to the southwest, a red dawn slicing open the east, and to the north–

Ohana’s breath caught in their throat as they studied the swirl of clouds tightening into a knot they’d only ever heard described in story. The word was only a word, the storm a notion, and yet Ohona felt the Ancestors flutter about them as surely as the jangle of cowrie shells on the bracelet around their wrist. Their sister had made it for them, a surprise gift replete with a polished charm of nephrite, a rare gray-blue to symbolize the sky to help keep them tethered during divination.

But this wasn’t the sky above Adjazi. This was another sky, another atoll. The crease was a sneering glimmer here too and Ohona felt themself pulled toward it, a fish-hook caught beneath their ribs reeling them in.

Another fold opened, another ocean dotted with the crescent scatter of familiar islands, another sky gathering clouds. The clouds were thicker and darker here, already crackling with lightning.

Another crease, another fold, and Ohona parted the sky to reveal yet another world. The same ocean, the same islands, the same growing storm devouring the horizon. On and on it stretched, rippling through crease after crease. Each world grew darker as the storm loomed larger, winds whipping up waves to lambaste the islands.

Ohona couldn’t fathom how the sky between worlds had torn, but as they pushed deeper into the crease, the wind became more violent. Eventually they peered through a crease, ragged and gaping wide. The ocean broiled as waves drowned the islands, so tiny and insignificant in this world against the might of the unraveling storm.

This couldn’t be the future for Adjazi.

World after world, Ohona searched for one in which there was no storm. Instead, Ohona found only the devastation the storm left in its wake. In every world, all that remained was a turbid ocean. The islands were gone.

The Ancestors quivered and Ohona withdrew. As the effects of the kepho wore off, Ohona fell back through the creases. Their head spun, the air a rush in their ears as their spirit plummeted back toward their body still laid out on the rock.

It took several moments for Ohona to regain their bearings, for the tumult in their mind and soul to settle. Here the waves lapped in a gentle susurrus, the wind was nothing but a breeze carding through their braids, the clouds across their sky were whisked cirrus and shaggy cumulus.

The crease remained a greasy smirk, color and threat dribbling from its corners.

Dawn turned to day, the red threat fading from raw wound to old scar but Ohona was still reeling, mind and soul lacerated as surely as their fingers as if some strange magic with serrated teeth had mauled their hands.

The skin smarted, tingling with whatever otherworldly forces moved beyond the sky. That peppery scent again, stronger this time, wrung tears from Ohona’s eyes.

It was wrong, all wrong, and Ohona had seen it.

A storm was coming. A cyclone like the ones in tales of old, only this one had swallowed the Adjazi islands in that other ocean too like their own. And soon, the storm would breach their world unless Ohona stopped it.

#

The council meeting began with songs to honor Haringu. Ohona’s voice creaked with nerves, hands still stinging as they waited for the formalities to end.

Today, they’d present their findings. They’d accept the consequences of their disobedience if it meant saving their home from certain destruction.

The other ’mancers spoke first and no one had good news. Even those who reported fewer abnormalities in their readings remained baffled by the lack of rain, the absence of the turtles, the thinning schools of fish, and the withering crops.

“You said the turtles would come by the next new moon,” Second Elder spoke sharply to Keveko, Ohona’s brother-in-law, and tide-talker. “Have the tides told you where they are, or why they haven’t come?”

“They should be here. All the signs–” Keveko frowned and scrubbed his palm over his shaved head, cowries jangling.

“Are you misreading the water?” Third Elder asked. “It’s happened to others, there’s no—”

“No!” Keveko blurted then bowed in immediate chagrin. “Apologies, I mean no disrespect. The tides speak softly, their voices fading. What they say remains the same, though. The turtles should be here.”

“And yet they are not,” Second Elder said, glowering.

“May I speak?” Ohona asked, catching the eye of their sister, Itrali, where she sat with her children across the council circle.

“Speak, cloud-reader.”

Tentatively, Ohona stepped forward and took a calming breath. “Guided by the Ancestors, I have read the clouds. Guided by the Ancestors, I was drawn to the crease.”

They ignored the scattered murmurings from the assembled islanders.

“Guided by the Ancestors, I was able to see through the crease and into the worlds beyond.”

“You have disobeyed us!” Second Elder slammed the butt of their driftwood staff against the earth.

“The Ancestors wanted me to see beyond the crease, to understand the threat to our world.”

“We are not interested–”

“Let Ohona speak,” Tsaidra said, First Elder and high priestess of Haringu, the chosen one of the crab god. Her skin bore the god’s marks, her flesh hardened in shell-like patches across her arms and legs. “If they were guided by the Ancestors, we have a duty to listen. Please, continue.” Tsaidra gestured to Ohona ignoring the grumbles from the other Elders.

Hesitantly, Ohona tried their best to describe what they’d seen.

“This is–” Third Elder seemed lost for words.

“This is ridiculous,” Keveko said when others sat in astonished silence. “You’ve addled your mind with too much kepho. Whatever you saw, you must’ve imagined.”

“It wasn’t a dream or hallucination.” Ohona glared at their brother-in-law. “I saw the storm in world after world. It is coming and it will destroy us.”

“A storm you’ve conjured through disobedience and arrogance,” Keveko said.

“The Ancestors guided me–”

“Who are you to be chosen by the Ancestors?” Second Elder asked.

“I–” Ohona wilted. “I am no one. I only read the clouds and the clouds led me to the crease.” Their eyes prickled with tears.

“You went looking for answers,” Tsaidra said, gently. “You went searching for a way to explain the changes in our world.”

“Yes,” Ohona said. “If the stories are true, then the troubles started when the crease appeared. There must be a connection.”

“And so it seems you found one,” Tsaidra said softly, her expression kind and gaze warm even if her words were chiding. “What is the first rule of all ’mancy?” she asked.

“See what is, not what you wish,” Keveko answered and Ohona’s heart shrivelled like the fruit on the dehydrated trees.

“Do you think it’s possible that in your search for answers, you’ve seen what you wanted to see instead of what is?” Tsaidra asked.

“I don’t know,” Ohona answered truthfully. “Perhaps I should look again.”

“No,” Second Elder snapped. “You have done enough. We’ll consider your report, and decide how to proceed, if at all.”

“Great Elders, if I may?” One of the older wind-talkers stepped forward. “Whether or not what Ohona saw is true, perhaps we shouldn’t ignore the crease any more.”

“We dwell too much on the crease,” Second Elder said. “This is what brings us trouble. If we leave well alone, then it–and whatever may lie beyond–won’t bother us. The more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.”

“With all due respect, the ones who are hungry are us,” the wind-talker said. “I don’t fear some storm gathering a dozen worlds away. I fear the storm already here. We are losing more than our crops and ability to read the sky and sea. Our children are leaving for the mainland. If we continue to do nothing, then there’ll be nothing left on these islands to save,” the wind-talker said and Ohona felt a familiar dread closing a cold fist on their heart.

“Thank you for your insight,” Tsaidra spoke before Second Elder could reply. “Your concerns are noted. We’ll commune with the guiding Ancestors, and pray to Haringu for guidance.” Tsaidra rapped her staff against the floor three times. The meeting was over.

Slowly, the islanders dispersed.

Ohona found Itrali while Keveko offered advice to a group of fisherfolk wanting to know where to cast their nets.

“You should leave,” Ohona said, every syllable a blade between their ribs. “Take the children and go. We have a cousin on the mainland—”

“I’m not leaving,” Itrali said as she rocked the infant in her arms. “Adjazi is my home and my children will grow up on these islands.”

“If the storm comes, we won’t survive.”

“If the storm comes,” she said. “I think I’ll take my chances. I’ll live and die here as Haringu wills it.” With that, she turned away, leaving Ohona wondering if Tsaidra was right about their search for answers manifesting the storm.

Ancestors willing, they would have to look again.

#

Mind hazed with kepho and buoyed once again by the cool hands of the Ancestors, Ohona sang and followed the clouds bristling like spears from the crease.

The journey was easier this time, the folds parting between their magic gnawed fingers, the song like a scythe cutting through the seams stitching one world to the next. The storm had drawn closer, more islands swallowed in its fury as it spiralled across oceans.

The storm was coming. It was real. Ohona felt the cockroach scuttle of the Ancestors’ fear beneath their skin. But surely this could not be the end of the world—worlds. If there were people on the islands, ’mancers like Ohona and iterations of the Elders, surely one of those Adjazi nations must’ve found a way to survive.

Heedless of the threads they tore as they passed from crease to crease, Ohona delved deeper. Somewhere far away, they felt their body shudder and seize, tasted the sour sick as their stomach heaved but they couldn’t stop. They needed answers.

With the tether between their soul and body fraying, the Ancestors grappling in ana attempt to haul them back, Ohona tumbled into a new world. The same ocean lay freshly frothed in the wake of the passing storm and the crescent of the Adjazi islands were intact. From this distance, Ohona couldn’t see much detail but knowing the islands hadn’t disappeared was enough. They traced the flow of the waves, frowning at the ridge north of the islands where breakers smashed impotent fists against a wall.

It rose like a flattened mountain from the sea, long and curved like the protective curl of a mother around a newborn. A barrier against the storm. In this world, they had found a solution, the islands had survived the storm. It could be done.

Ohona withdrew and plummeted back into their body.

The landing was harder this time and they tumbled off the rock into the shallows. They coughed up blood and bile, their raw hands screaming at contact with the salt water, eyes streaming, burning from gazing so long on other worlds, and that peppery putrescence staining their tongue.

The wind dropped and the fine hairs on the back of Ohona’s neck prickled with unease at the sound of cries. Ohona rushed on unsteady legs, staggering up the beach to where other islanders were already gathered, singing, praying, and sobbing.

Ohona paused, rubbing their eyes as if that would alter the image before them. The turtles had finally come. Dozens, hundreds even, their green and brown patchwork shells glinting in the oily light of the rising sun. They were all dead, or dying. The tide was coming in, when it should have been ebbing, and each wave deposited another slew of corpses on the sand.

It was wrong. Very very wrong.

Ohona glanced up at the sky, at the crease broadening in a gloating grin.

“What did you do?” Keveko grabbed a fistful of Ohona’s shirt.

“I didn’t—” Ohona lost the ability to speak as another wave rushed up the beach, leaving a trail of dead turtles in its wake. Perhaps they were responsible. In their haste and desperation to find an answer, they’d torn through the worlds without any thought of the consequences should more magic seep from the realms beyond.

“You did this.” Keveko pulled back his fist and Ohona braced for the blow.

Keveko’s knuckles caught them on the jaw, teeth cutting into cheek, coppery blood at least momentarily flooding out the taste of that other magic. “I’m taking you to the Elders. You’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

Ohona didn’t fight as Keveko hauled them through the carnage on the beach. Ohona could only offer muttered apologies and their own anguished prayers as they passed the tear-stained faces of the mourning islanders. If this was the price of saving the islands, so be it. Ohona only hoped Tsaidra and the other Elders would listen.

#

“A wall?” Tsaidra steepled her fingers as she studied Ohona. “You were brought before us on charges of disobedience, and worse. Your own brother-in-law has called you fassi, and yet you speak of a storm wall raised up from the ocean.”

Ohona flinched at the word fassi. They hadn’t disregarded Haringu, they hadn’t gone against the guidance of the Ancestors, nor had they betrayed their people. Everything they’d done was to protect their people.

“I want to save the islands,” Ohona said. “This is how we can do it.”

“Because you saw it in another world?” Third Elder asked, eyebrows raised.

“I think it might be the only way to protect the islands.”

“And what about the turtles?” Second Elder scowled at Ohona. “Your meddling has already caused harm.”

“If we do nothing, we’ll lose more than turtles,” Ohona said.

“So you say,” Second Elder sneered. “You who are fassi!” She pointed at Ohona, cowrie-bracelets chiming elegies.

“Kill me if you must,” Ohona said. “But please, build the wall.”

“How?” Tsaidra asked.

Ohona stumbled. They’d seen the completed structure, not the making of it. It seemed to be made of stone. There wasn’t enough timber on the islands to make one of wood, and logs wouldn’t be sturdy enough to withstand the gales of the cyclone.

“With stone,” Ohona said. “Called up from the depths.”

“Called from the depths?” Tsaidra repeated in disbelief. “Do you think our earth ’mancers can work such magic?”

“If we all worked together we could appeal to Haringu, perhaps with the crab-god’s blessing and the power of the Ancestors we could do it.” The wall didn’t need to survive being battered, it only needed to last long enough to protect the islands from the worst of the storm’s fury.

“And how long do we have to prepare before this catastrophic storm spills across our world?” Tsaidra asked. 

Ohona squeezed their eyes closed, and riffled through their memories, trying to recall the shape of the day-time moon.

“Before the next full moon,” Ohona said. “The storm will hit a day or two before.”

“So you saw into the future as well as across worlds?” Second Elder scoffed. “You, and only you.”

“I am the only capable cloud-reader,” Ohona said. Sixth Elder, the cloud-reader who’d taught them all they knew, sat wizened and shrimp-backed in the corner, snoring. Her cloud-reading days were over, and soon her life would be too, whether or not the storm hit.

“Three days then,” Tsaidra said and sucked her teeth. “Three days to raise a wall from the ocean to prevent a storm from another world.” She laughed, the sound like shattering sea-glass.

“A fine day for an offering,” Second Elder spoke. “Three days until you will stand before the Ancestors for judgment.”

“We’ll all die then, unless you do something,” Ohona said, their fate sealed. “If you cannot or will not build the wall then at least send people away. Let them leave the islands and find shelter on the mainland.” In houses made of stone and brick instead of mud and thatch. Deeper inland, into the protective embrace of jungle where the storm wouldn’t be able to reach.

“We have weathered storms before,” Tsaidra said.

“Not in generations, and none like this,” Ohona said.

“How would you know?” Third Elder said. “You are just a child.”

“If I’m lying and there’s no storm then you would have worked together to construct a barrier to help when there is a storm,” Ohona said. “Please. I accept my fate, but don’t condemn the others as well.”

#

Ohona waited to die, their head canted toward the sky where the crease undulated. A shimmering taunt, distorting the clouds around it. They didn’t fear death or judgment. The Ancestors had borne them to the crease. Regardless of what Keveko or others said, Ohona knew they hadn’t betrayed their god or people. They only lamented the stubbornness of the Elders.

Ohona watched the dawn spill arterial fire across the horizon from the narrow window of their make-shift prison—a hut left empty for those rare times a person might need to be secluded from society for their transgressions. The door remained bolted from the outside, shutting Ohona within the stifling confines with only buzzing insects to keep them company. 

To the north, the clouds were odd, a rumpled blanket in need of a good shake. They gathered in coils around the crease, darkness seeping into the margins, spreading like squid-ink in water. Lightning flickered, thunder a distant warning.

This morning, Itrali delivered Ohona’s breakfast of vanilla-sweetened pancakes and coconut fish stew with a steaming mug of thick coffee. 

“Thank you.” Ohona accepted the tray of what should’ve been their favorites, but the peppery rot of strange magic still coated their mouth. “Is anything being done?”

Itrali shook her head, tears slicking her cheeks. The wind gusted, tearing at her clothes and disheveling her locks. “The Elders are praising Haringu for granting us relief from the drought. The Elders say the rain is an answer to our prayers.”

Ohona had failed then. Tsaidra hadn’t listened or been able to convince the Elders of the threat.

“There’s still time.” Ohona reached their hand through the window. “You can still leave. Take the kids and my dhow. Get to the mainland, as far inland as you can go.”

“You still believe—” Itrali shook her head. “It’s not just turtles,” she said. “There are dolphins now, and whales, sharks, rays. It’s like the ocean is vomiting up all its living creatures.” She swatted away a tear and hugged herself. “You did this. Always so curious, always out to prove you know more, that you’re smarter than everyone else. And now look.” She waved toward the beach.

Ohona let their hand drop, bracelet clinking. 

“This is no ordinary storm,” Ohona said. “Please, if not for yourself, do it for your children. You can still save them.”

Lightning sliced across the billowing clouds. They were churning now, spinning into tightening coils as the storm spun through the crease. Soon, the Elders would come for Ohona, walk them into the waves and hold them down until salt water filled their lungs, their soul given to the sea for the Ancestors to retrieve, or ignore.

Rain began to fall, big squelching splots that made Itrali flinch as they hit. “I love you,” she said before turning away. 

Ohona called after her, but she hurried around the corner of the hut. Ohona blinked away tears as the rain fell harder. Despite the growing din of the storm, they heard the bolt being drawn back on the door and braced for the appearance of the Elders.

Instead, the door slammed open, hinges protesting the abuse by the wind.

No Elders, no judgment, only the fury of the storm.

Ohona rushed into the rain. The wind was an incessant roar, the clouds above a furious, writhing mass devouring the sky as dawn seemed to withdraw, retreating once more into the darkness of night.

Islanders had retreated into their homes, boarding up windows and doors, but it was far too little too late. Others rushed to the piers, ditching possessions as they tumbled into dhows and fishing boats, hauling children into canoes before paddling panic-stricken southwest to the promise of mainland safety. The crossing took hours. The storm would be upon them long before even the first of those to flee had made it halfway.

Ohona strode down to the beach, fighting the wind with every step. The ocean broiled, the waves white-crested and thrashing against the shore, throwing up huge plumes of spray. The beach was littered with carcasses, some being dragged back into the depths.

Tsaidra stood on the beach, flanked by several ’mancers including an ash-faced Keveko. Ohona bit back the ‘told you so’ and joined the others in silence.

Keveko turned and, with a snarl, grabbed Ohona, dragging them toward the water. “We should’ve drowned you days ago and avoided all this.” Keveko hooked a foot around Ohona’s and drove the cloud-reader face first into the water.

Ohona held their breath and thrashed against the iron grip of Keveko’s large hands. Their death served no purpose now, not when Itrali and other families needed the ’mancers to give them a fighting chance.

At last, the grip loosened and Ohona wiggled free, coughing and spitting out sand. Keveko stood frozen, staring at the waves rushing backwards with dizzying speed. A mountain loomed in the distance. Ohona blinked and the mountain grew. Not a mountain, but a wave, rearing up to meet the sky.

“It’s too late to build a wall,” Tsaidra said, offering Ohona her hand and hauling the cloud-reader to their feet. 

“We can still help,” Ohona said between splutters. “A barrier of any kind would help. We just need to give people enough time to get away.”

“What about those that stay?” a wind-talker asked.

Ohona’s silence was answer enough, a silence ruptured by bone-cracking thunder.

“Itrali,” Keveko turned toward the boats.

“She has my dhow,” Ohona screamed over the wind. “Go and help her, then come back. We need you.”

Keveko nodded before running past several other ’mancers joining Ohona and the others on the beach. The animal-speakers weren’t of much use, but they could add their voices to the song and bolster the magic.

“A barrier,” Tsaidra yelled over the tumult of the storm. “Something to break the wave, to channel the wind into their sails.” She pointed at the scrambling fleet.

Ohona led the others in song, planting their feet in the sand and raising their hands toward the maelstrom. Together, the ’mancers of the Adjazi atoll called on Haringu the crab god and all their Ancestors, together they called on the magic of their islands, pleading with the forces they usually only used for divination and never tried to shape with their will. They implored the powers now to take up defensive positions against the ravaging storm.

The wave loomed closer, blocking out what little remained of the light, obscuring even the crease from view.

Ohona sang their throat bloody, knowing it wasn’t going to be enough.

#

Days later, Itrali rowed her canoe through the field of debris. 

Whole trees had been ripped from the earth, shattered remnants of homes bobbing on the surface while dead livestock floated past, bloated and fish-nibbled. The sea was like glass today, a pristine turquoise reflecting the clear sky. 

There were human bodies too, drowned and damaged, and Itrali turned over every corpse, searching for the familiar faces of the ones she’d lost. She and the other survivors spread out across the field of storm litter, recovering whatever they could from their former lives on the islands scrubbed smooth by the storm. In time perhaps they would return and rebuild, but not while the crease remained, that cruel eye sealed in a teasing wink.

Itrali continued her search for the ’mancers and Elders who’d stayed behind, who’d given their lives so she and her children could live. Gulls wheeled above while skimmers darted across the water in nimble flight, and there, snagged on a patch of floating thatch, a bracelet with six cowries and a charm of nephrite, the blue-gray of the storm-washed sky.

END

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This story explores different means by which groups of people have made predictions in the past as ways to think about how we make weather predictions now. Some researchers use simple climate models, where we can see how slight changes in the simplified physics might result in different futures – akin to looking into other worlds, in a multiverse model of physics. By contrast, other researchers use much larger and more computationally intensive models, where we try to understand the physics of e.g. clouds in more detail, but with less power to understand how subtle misrepresentations of the physics in the model can result in errors in the predictions.

–Dr. Robin Lamboll 

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This story also aims to highlight the unique and extensive challenges experienced by island nations due to climate change. Although there have been attempts made to combine indigenous knowledge systems with more modern (Western) models for predicting weather and climate events, more and better work needs to be done to support these real-world communities at the greatest risk of climate devastation without damaging indigenous knowledge and culture.

–Xan van Rooyen

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