You can learn as much about the waves alone, and at some point to progress you need learn from others. Of course opinions are different but self-thought people who would master some knowledge, like really master are simply rare. I grew curiosity about university courses about oceanography and took me some time to figure out the possibilities of joining. I have discovered that one of the possible options were “Nordic citizens and applicants residing in the Nordic countries may apply to take this course as a single course student.“.

Figuring out how it all works in terms of administration was not easy but finally in August 2022 I was accepted as a single – course student. I got access to master level courses (since they are taught in English) and when I browsed through the list I felt like a child with a box of chocolates, and I could only pick 2.

I started doing courses such as “Geophysical data science” or “Numerical Weather Forecasting”. As part of courses we should do some projects – and that’s how I met Eric – an PhD oceanography student. We needed to chose the subject and to my surprise he also wanted to analyze tide data.

As a result we created:

norway tide stations dashboard

Oslo University created me possibilities I never dreamt about. We had access to very good and fast library – most of the books I could think of were at place. We had access to publications. Many teachers worked at Meteorologisk Institute – so I could actually learned from people who were working on forecasts.

One of the school projects I realized was about “What is a good forecast”, by A.H. Murrphy. I was surprised how little was written about it. Basically a good forecast is not just calculating statistical error. A good forecast takes into account negative or positive impact on people who follow it. Imagine good waves are forecasted, and you take a day off – only to come and be disstapointed. Or a bad day is predicted that turns out to be the “wave of the saeson” and you miss it. How do you handle the risk? Under or over forecast?

Marte was teaching us about handling chaos. At certain point I would also think, that due to chaos phenomena are not predictable, but even chaos is not random – has it patterns – in math called atractors. He thought us about ensemble forecasting.

At one of the semesters I could do the project of Wave verification. I was doing it with Anna (link). That was very interesting experience. I was surprised that it is not being done on regular basis. 

Kai took us on Oslofjord expedition. We would go around the fjord, taking measurements of salinity, temperature, calculating Kolmogorov depth and observing drifing boys. One of my lessons was – the ocean is vertically stratified. Salinity varies a lot.

That was all on geoscience department. One day i typed “waves” in the course catalogue. I found “Hydronamics theory of water waves” at mathematics department. I went there and was very shy. You see I had a degree at computer science - and I fast recognized how much math I miss: vector analysis and partial differential equations – were the most painful gaps. Suddenly I had to somehow learn it all overnight. Of course its not possible – but one needs to start somewhere. There were days when the amount of knowledge was overwhelming, when I felt its too much. Doing Easter obligaroisk took me … Easter. I was slow and rusty and annoyed with myself. Yes, I asked for help, I took private lessons over skype – and it helped, but it was still not enough. I decided – there is no point in taking exam. I withdrew.

And that was one of the moment that I got to know a bot if Karsten. Karsten is one of the teachers, who somehow motivated me. It turned out that I can be still put back on the exam – you just go 2 floors down to administration. I asked for last possible date – end of June. And I simply scarified the summer.

Each afternoon after work I would bike to the Sjolyst Marina and study. I new the scope of the exam, and I set at the pier of the marina doing math. The exam was oral, I passed.

Next semester was in 1.5 months. Numerical methods for PDE, non linear waves.

to do finish me