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RMetS Local Centres
North West Local Centre |
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Minutes and Meeting Reports |
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Group MinutesMinutes will appear here for all meetings held after July 2006. Committee members as on 1st June 2007: Andrew Russell (Chair)
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Meeting Reports |
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WEATHER ON THE PLANETS:Tuesday 2nd December 2008
Prof. Fred Taylor (University of Oxford) spoke about "The climate of Venus". Venus has a dense atmosphere mostly consisting of carbon dioxide, which results in a strong greenhouse effect making Venus much hotter (up to 460degC!) than Mercury despite being further from the Sun. Lightning is also common on Venus, as detected by the Venus Express mission and Prof. Taylor described some of the work that will be going on in the near future. Dr. Stephen Lewis (Open University) then described his work on "Weather forecasting for Mars" using computer models. Dust storms are common and powerful on the surface of Mars and recently water-ice clouds and precipitation have been detected on Mars! Around 50 people attended the meeting. More info on the Atmosphere of Venus. Phoenix Mars Mission website has more info on data acquisition from the red planet. Café Scientifique - Who pays for climate change?: Tuesday 27th May 2008
Dr. Myles Allen (University of Oxford) brought a fascinating and controversial perspective to our May meeting, which was very informal and involved a lot of chat over a beer or a coffee in Cafe Muse on Oxford Road. Myles has been heavily involved with the IPCC and has worked with people in the legal profession. It was amazing to hear the potential issues that might come about when looking for solutions to the problems that climate change will undoubtedly cause. The discussion was attended by around 30 people and I think everyone contributed to the ideas being thrown around - a great success! Go to the Café Scientifique to find an event near you.
CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS: Tuesday 29th April 2008
Roger Street (UK Climate Impacts Programme or UKCIP) gave an interesting overview of UKCIP from the initial repost as far back as 1991 to the 2008 report that will be published in November. The report, called UKCIP08, will be comprised of 3 parts: 1) Historical climate information; 2) Probabalistic climate predictions and; 3) Marine projections. In particular, the reports "Headline Messages" will give an overview of expected national changes. Dr. Colin Beale (The Macaulay Institute) then considered the climate change impacts on the terrestrial environment. Dr. Beale looked at these impacts from the perspective of a swallow migrating north in a changing climate including the Spanish deserts and the vinyards of southern England. One of the most interesting observations made by Dr. Beale was the differences in the regions that have emitted most greenhouse gases in the past and those that will experience the greatest climate changes - see the picture above. The meeting was attended by around 40 people. UKCIP homepage is where to download the UKCIP reports when they are published. The Macaulay Institute homepage gives lots of details of the institute's work. EXTREME EVENTS: Tuesday 29th January 2008
Dr. Andrew Russell (local centre chairman) opened the meeting with a brief introduction to what is meant by extreme events, covering heatwaves, hurricanes, floods and a little bit of the statistics. Prof. Chris Collier (University of Salford) then considered the theme of “Extreme Flooding” in the UK in much greater detail. This was a timely subject as the eastern coast of England had recently been threatened by a storm that only narrowly failed top the defences. Mr. Edward Hayes (local centre member) having recently completed an MSc on Meteorology at University College Dublin gave an overview of his work on “Hurricanes and Global Warming”. There appears to be a lot of controversy surrounding our understanding of the future regime of hurricanes and it is a topic of much interest. The meeting was attended by around 70 people. Chapter 3 of the IPCC 2007 report gives a good overview of the current view of extreme events. NASA animation of the 2005 hurricane season as shown by Edward at the meeting. TRANSPORT, WEATHER AND CLIMATE: Tuesday 4th December 2008
Prof. Callum Thomas (Manchester Metropolitan University) opened the meeting by giving an insight into his work on “Aviation and Climate Change”. Aviation is a growing industry and it was surprising to hear some of the strategies airlines are using to reduce fuel costs (e.g. budget airlines asking passengers to visit the toilet before boarding!) Aviation also has a significant impact on the composition of the atmosphere and some of the options for tackling this were introduced – on this subject there was a heated discussion about the possibility of using hydrogen to power aircraft. Dr. Lee Chapman (University of Birmingham) then gave a talk about what he called “An Introduction to Upside-Down Remote Sensing”. Amongst other things, Dr. Chapman explained how ground-based hemispherical photography has been used to automate measurements of vegetation and cloud cover in order to help with decisions about when to clear train tracks and grit roads, respectively. Around 45 people attended the meeting.
Our first meeting of the 2007/08 academic year was held in the John Dalton Building of Manchester Metropolitan University. The theme was the origin, use and future of weather and climate modelling - a subject of interest to both the meteorological and mathematical communities. Dr. Sylvia Knight (RMetS) gave a concise introduction to this subject by discussing various types of models, their structure and use by weather forecasters and climate researchers. Prof. Peter Lynch (University College Dublin) then reviewed the characters, physics and particular cases that were instrumental in the emergence of weather and climate modelling. Finally, Dr. Richard Forbes (ECMWF) looked to the future and, using assumptions based on the continuing development of high performance computing (leading to an interesting aside on toasters, see below), presented how the continued increase in global Numerical Weather Prediction model resolution will impact on their skill. All the talks were well recived by the audience of around 75. Prof. Peter Lynch's website - this includes details on the matlab run based on the ENIAC intergrations, information on his book "The emergence of weather and climate modelling: Richardson’s dream" and his amusing article " A Century of NWP: The View from Limerick" Toasters and meteorology - Richard mentioned this toaster/weather forecast reporter and then predicted that, perhaps one day soon, toasters themselves will be able to house the necessary computing power to actually run the models!
THE FRONTIERS OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE In April we will had an evening of exciting presentations from postgraduate students. The aim of the evening was to highlight wide range of interdisciplinary research being undertaken by postgraduate students around the UK. The turnout was around 25. The following people spoke: Graham Hall (University of Bangor): "An integrated meteorological/hydrological model for the Mawddach catchment, North Wales"
Dr. Andrew Russell and Hugo Ricketts (University of Manchester) started the meeting off with an overview of cloud formation and classification (including some practical demonstrations) and also looked at clouds in large scale weather systems and some more unusual clouds. Prof. Alan Blyth (University of Leeds) then gave a fascinating talk about his experiences of observing clouds on field campaigns around the globe. The meeting was completed with a special guest appearance from Prof. Chris Collier (University of Salford) who showed some simulations of cloud formation over urban areas. Many thanks to all those who came to the meeting, of whom there were between 50 and 60, we forgot to do a head count! Here's some links to websites with some nice cloud pictures: Clouds in Physics Education - Andrew and Hugo wrote a short article based on their talk and it has been published in the journal Physics Education. Cloud Atlas - translations of all the Latin names of the genera, species and varieties with example pictures to boot. RMetS Cloudbank - a great archive of cloud snaps from the Royal Meteorological Society. Cloud Appreciation Society - slightly less of an authority on these matters but taking a light-hearted approach to so called "cloudspotting".
Our first meeting of 2007 got the year off to a great start. With two great talks, a lot of questions coming from the audience and an attendance of just over 100 people (thanks to all those who attended), the evening was eye-opening, entertaining and timely given the anticipation about the summary of the IPCC report that was published in the same week. Prof. Paul Hardaker (Cheif Executive of RMetS) opened the meeting by reviewing our knowledge of observed and expected global and local climate change. He then discussed whether politicians have a good grasp of climate change and speculated on the implications of this for the forthcoming Climate Change Bill. Dr. Kevin Anderson (University of Manchester, Director of the Tyndall Centre North) spoke about the challenges that we will face in meeting any of the emmissions targets that have been set by the UK and problems with the way in which this issue is tackled at the political level and presented to the public. Useful links: IPCC - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change RealClimate - an interesting forum for climate science
The second meeting of the North-West Local Centre of the RMetS was an interesting evening discussing the impacts of pollution and climate change on health. Dr. Rob Kinnersley (Environment Agency) spoke about the impact of atmospheric aerosols on our health. In a related talk Dr. Ian Longley (University of Manchester) presented some results from an exciting field campaign (Cityflux) where the concentration of particals were measured at various sites around Macnehster city centre. Finally, Prof. Glenn McGregor (King’s College London) spoke about heat waves and health impacts, taking a good look at the european heat wave of 2003 and expected changes into the future. Again, over 60 people attended the meeting and we wish to thank those members who travelled to attend. Link to Meteorology and Health absracts
The revival of the North-West Local Centre of the RMetS got of to somewhat of a bang with the meeting on Thunderstorms with talks from Prof. Keith Browning (University of Reading), Prof. Geraint Vaughan (University of Manchester) and Dr. Clive Saunders (University of Manchester). The support for the centre was strong with a meeting attendance of approximately 65. A full report has been published in Weather, see below. I would like to thank everyone who made the effort to attend the meeting and encourage as many of our local members as possible to attend future meeting. Link to full meeting report (published in Weather 62(4) 107-108) |
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