This is more a discussion item than a question...
Receiving yet another global study in my feed, claiming the importance of looking at the big picture, my eyes rolled back and I felt like shutting down the PC.
The approach of taking a solid data set, hopefully in a regional setting, and using it to validate processes to be modelled AND calibrate model parameters, to the best level possible seems to be increasingly 'unnecessary'. Almost by definition, global studies must necessarily ignore secondary or tertiary processes, even if they are locally primary, and therefore we end up with poor validation. This generally means they are unusable at a local scale, which is the main level of application for science and management.
In a simple sense, if geographic (or temporal) biases of a model are bigger than than the signal, then the model is no good. This is one of the main questions I ask, when I start a journal article review. I have stopped accepting reviews that are global in scale, thanks to repeated disappointment.
Can someone please point me towards a global study (waves, water levels, streamflow, sediment transport) that has provided truly valuable academic insights, that is also meaningful at a local scale? I would like to direct would-be authors towards a rare beast.
Also interested Matt! It is also my general understanding that if ones goal was to get a Nature paper or similar in coastal morphodynamics such global studies are the way :-P
Hi Matt,
you raise a valuable point - that was further expanded on by James Rising and co-authors in a perspective article in Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05243-6
An example of how global studies can be relevant at national or regional scales is the work of the Sea Around Us Initiative, which builds global data sets bottom up. With some more standardisation of individual models that would also be true for the Ecopath with Ecosim work where localised models can allow some generalisations at larger scales.
Best, Cornelia
I found to be quite valid, the concerns raised by Matt! The point is that global-scale analyses will more likely receive a 'yes' from the top-tier journals, Nature et. al. However, as global studies tend to be extremely concise and condensed, it invariably means that most of the information that may be relevant at the local scale is lost, unfortunately.
As far as cliffs and beaches are concerned, I don’t think so. There are plenty of local studies. I would say the cliff community is ready to scale up their analyses and tie them to oceanographic and cross-shore shoreline sediment transport models. The massive influx of data from / image processing / machine learning techniques / has enabled the auto-classification of features (i.e. the delineation of the “shoreline” or ”cliff-edge“), making it much easier to investigate trends and retreat rates over various timescales (hours - centuries) and tie them to the actual process (wave erosion + rainfall).
Caveat: you probably shouldn’t make assumptions about global dynamics with few data points, especially if the data are limited to not most of the Earth.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. "Global" studies in coastal "science" - quite an interesting oxymoron. I think climate science has pushed many other disciplines to publish what they think as "global studies" these days. Admittedly, the coast is a linear feature and geographical laws that work well in two-dimension may break down. But there might be some global rules, albeit counter-intuitive, exist that are related to variables we have not measured yet. So, let's look forward!
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