Oh well, I got lucky and have the Brunel lectureship with all new responsibilities that I'll be blogging about in the future.

However, I thought now might be a good time to look back at what I've done to get here - the flowchart to the right gives a quick idea. I suppose its quite a long journey - starting in Dover (top of the flow chart), then to London, then Norwich, Birmingham, Manchester and now back to London (bottom of the flow chart) - but hopefully its all been worth it!

This is our first attempt but I'm quite proud if it! More episodes to follow, hopefully every two weeks or so. Enjoy:

I wasn't planning on covering virga this soon in my series of posts but I was in my local park and these beautiful clouds floated past.

Virga aren't particularly rare but they're still nice looking. The white streaks beneath the clouds is precipitation that is evaporating before it hits the ground - this is the virga (which apparently means twig in latin). In these photos the little high clouds are probably precipitating ice crystals that melt and then re-evaporate.

But I thought that this would be a good opportunity to have a look at the general climate situation in the South Pole region...

The clearest signal is rapid warming that has been seen on the Antarctic Peninsula (the bit that points up to South America) over the last 50 years.

The picture for the rest of the continent is not so clear, mainly because of the lack of data. For comparison, the USA has over 1000 climatological observing stations, some of which go back to the late 1800s; Antarctica currently has around 55 stations, very few of which go back to before 1957, (plus a similar number of automatic weather stations, which tend to not be maintained for long periods) and these data are used to represent a much bigger land area.

[Image from NASA]

Nonetheless, there have been some high profile studies looking at Antarctic temperature trends, some finding cooling, some finding warming and nearly all being controversial.

So why is the warming on the Peninsula so clear?

The reason is that the warming is mostly driven by atmospheric circulation changes and not the increase in the greenhouse gas concentrations (although global climate change patterns forced by GHGs can include atmospheric circulation changes).

The key factor is that the ozone hole above the South Pole has changed the wind patterns - when ozone is removed from the stratosphere, less solar UV radiation is absorbed so the polar stratosphere cools. This increases the temperature change as you move away from the pole and, in turn, has changed the westerly (clockwise) winds that circle the pole - they are now further south and faster.

This wind pattern spreads down through the atmosphere towards the planet's surface and has, therefore, brought more warm air from over the Southern Ocean to the Peninsula. This circulation change has less effect on the Antarctic interior and possibly even isolates it from the rest of the Earth system.

This climate change pattern is really interesting to study and we can even use ice core data from the Antarctic to look at how these winds have changed in the past - I've recently reviewed the literature on this subject (Russell and McGregor 2010).

Korhonen et al. (2010) have even found another mechanism of how these wind changes have affected the climate. As the wind speed over the ocean increases, it throws up more spray and this means that more clouds can form over the Southern Ocean and Antarctica (I'll write a post later about how clouds form). If there are more, bright clouds around then these reflect away more incoming sunlight, which will cool the region beneath these clouds.

So, to bring all this together, if the Antarctic continent has been cooling (which isn't clear) then this could be because the normal rules don't apply to Antarctica. Does this mean that we can say that Antarctic climate change is the exception that proves the rule of GHG forced climate change?

Probably not, but it does highlight just how complicated the climate system is and how much more there is find out about it!

One of the things I love about atmospheric science is that there are some beautiful things in our skies.  This post is about one of my personal favourites, Kelvin-Helmholtz Billows:

These billows occur when a layer of cloud is found beneath a layer of warmer air and the two layers are flowing in different directions. When this situation occurs, the lower cloud layer is not bouyant so it can't push up into the warm layer.  However, under the rare circumstances that the two layers are flowing just right, the interaction between the two layers will form an instability and the cloud layer will "break" into the upper layer in the wave-like pattern seen above.  These cloud formations are so rare that they rank as the highest scoring cloud in the Cloud Appreciation Society's Cloud Collector's Handbook.  (Confession: I have never actually seen one in the sky.)

But, I have seen one in the lab!  The amazing video below shows an experiment I did during a summer school at the University of Cambridge where the same conditions can be set up.  Enjoy.

[Thanks to Tor Smith (University of Leeds) for the footage and to the University of Cambridge Fluid Dynamics labs for the equipment.]

[This post is reproduced from my new blog at http://andyrussell.wordpress.com]

There has been a lot of talk over the last week about some private documents and emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) that were hacked and made public.  Firstly, I think its worth mentioning that this is a criminal act targeting a few individuals - this is definitely not the way to conduct any scientific debate and it should be condemned and investigated.  I suppose I should also mention that I have studied at CRU in the past and that I hold their work in very high regard (especially that of Prof. Phil Jones, the focus of this attack).

So, the main question people are/should be asking is: does anything in these files undermine the scientific evidence behind climate change and the role that human activity has had on that change?  The answer is definitely no, that evidence remains as strong as it always has.  It seems that most of the email exchanges just show some scientists throwing some ideas around and trying to make their work the best it can be.

The kind of people who try to discredit the science and the scientists working on climate change often make accusations of a global conspiracy to cover up the lack of any evidence for climate change – these emails represent around 13 years of email correspondence between some of the leading climate scientists in the world and there is not one hint at such a conspiracy.  Those who claim that there is such evidence in these files are dreaming and this leak damages their conspriacy theories more than the science behind climate change.

Ok, so there are one or two issues arising from the emails but, to be frank, if someone made all my emails from the last 13 years public I’m sure there would be a few things I would want to explain or put into context.  There seem to be two main issues:

1)    talk of the “trick to…hide the decline” in one email
2)    talk between scientists to discredit a certain journal (Climatic Research)

The first of these relates to quite a complex problem that has been found when using tree ring data to reconstruct past climates.  The scientists in question have never tried to hide this problem, in fact they have written about it the highest profile science journal in the world.  The unfortunate term (“hide the decline”) used in these previously private emails refers to the best way to plot the data to make the most reliable parts stand out.  As for the Climate Research issue, this was a big problem in 2003 when the journal published something that had pretty big methodological flaws but a strong (anti-climate change) opinion – people were right to be upset by this (in fact, a few of the journal’s own editorial board resigned over the paper) and these previously private emails reflect that irritation amongst the scientists whose work was questioned in that flawed paper.

As usual, RealClimate.org are doing a great job of addressing this climate issue.  I’d really recommend having a look if you are interested in this.

Wow, what a week! Just starting to catch my breath. I've been doing a few things with MSF this last week and its been amazing. My rainfall experiment, which I mentioned a few blog posts ago, was a success and we got lots of media coverage just before the festival so hopefully loads of people heard about MSF who wouldn't normally know about it. The science I managed to do was really interesting too - I found out some things about rain in Manchester that we didn't know before. There's a little summary here. So, what now? I guess I'd better get back to work!

Climate engineering has been all over the news recently because one of the UK’s scientific bodies, the Royal Society, has written a report on whether we should be trying to control our climate. The main ideas involve reflecting away light from the Sun or removing greenhouse gases, like CO2, from the atmosphere by, for example, encouraging the ocean to absorb more of those gases.

Well, their report seems to decide that a lot of these ideas are not very good. As an example why, if we do manage to reflect light from the Sun away and cool the planet a bit then we will probably also change the planet’s water cycle and could cause droughts in  some areas. No-one wants that. There is also a worry that if scientists start saying we can fix the climate with technology then governments will feel that they do not have to slow their emissions of greenhouse gases. This report makes it clear that reduction of emissions is still the key to slowing climate change; if any of these engineering solutions will work, it will still have to be alongside emission reductions.

So, does this mean that we shouldn’t start to research climate engineering ideas in more detail? I think we should start research programmes, partly because it would not be very expensive to implement some of these ideas. For example, there are many individuals, let alone rouge states, that could afford to launch a rocket into the upper atmosphere and release particles that could start to reflect away sunlight. Because of this, we need to know what this will do and what the side effects might be.

If you want to know more about this topic, then please feel free to come along to a talk I have organised on Climate Engineering in Manchester. One of the report’s authors, Prof. Andrew Watson from the University of East Anglia, will be giving the talk. Here are the details:

CLIMATE ENGINEERING
Tuesday 29th September 5.30pm
Tea and coffee from 5pm
Room D7 in the Renold Building on the University of Manchester north campus, near to Piccadilly (it is number 8 on this campus map)

This is just a quick one...  I'm organising a project and workshop for Manchester Science Festival about rainfall patterns around Manchester.  Here's a link to the project website as it stands:

There was quite a bit of stuff in the news last week about the Met Office’s seasonal weather forecasts.  Most of the coverage, though, didn’t really look at the science at all!  In particular, Simon Jenkins in The Guardian wrote a column that included several basic errors – I suspect he was just using the story to justify his views that there is too much public funding for science.  For example, he said that the seasonal forecasts for the summers of 2007 and 2008 were also wrong, in part, because those summers were cooler than average.  This is not right: the average temperature for summer 2008 was above the 1971-2000 average (14.5^oC vs. 14.1^oC) whilst summer 2007 (14.1^oC) was almost exactly the same as the 1971-2000 average.  Similarly, the forecast for this summer was that it would be warmer than average, which will probably be the case.  The rain element of the seasonal forecast (“rainfall near or below average”) was the bit that was revised recently.

So, it turns out that the forecast wasn’t that bad but it all went a bit wrong on the communication side.  The “Barbeque Summer” sound bite is what really did it for the Met Office.  Seasonal forecasting is a relatively new science (but it is not a "pseudo-science" as Jenkins also said in The Guardian) and scientists are still working out how best to present these seasonal predictions.  The problem here was that the sound bite, which seems to have stuck in the mind, hid an immense amount of reliable science that, I suspect, few people would be particularly interested in, not to mention that probabalistic/ensemble forecasting is also not that easy to understand.  Perhaps, though, if people are going to use these predictions to make holiday or business decisions then they should investigate more of the detail.
 

I seem to have become interested in tornados recently.  They are kind of related to my work – they form from the base of the storm clouds that are the focus of my work – but I’d never really given them much thought.  However, they are great to talk to people about, as I found out the Cheltenham science festival a few weeks ago (see my blog post further down the page).  Recently I’ve also talked about them at Famelab and on the One Show on BBC1 (see pictures).  They are particularly exciting as we don’t really know why they form!  Sure, we know the general conditions that lead to a tornado but the details are a bit sketchy.  Well, there’s something for the next generation of scientists to solve...

A few of the NOISEmaker team went to the Underage music festival in London on Sunday to spread the science and engineering noise.  We had a great spot at the festival, right by the main stage so we got to see a few bands as well (Hadouken!, Santigold, Little Boots, Pigeon Detectives, Mystery Jets...) and had a cool time talking to people about our science demos.  The picture above shows one of things I took along - its a demonstration of Bernoulli's principle using a hairdryer and a ping pong ball. Have a look at this page if you want to try the experiment yourself!  Its an important experiment for my work at the university as it shows how raindrops and ice crystals are suspended in in clouds.

Wow, am I really on my second Chelty as a NOISEmaker?!?!  Another brilliant effort from the NOISE team at the festival - I had a great time talking to people about the weather and climate, specifically tornadoes because I made a tornado chamber.  The chamber is essentially just a fan that sucks up tiny water droplets made by something called a mini fogger (and some other bits I threw together) and it looks really cool!  I also went to some great talks at the festival and saw a fellow NOISEmaker (Tom Whyntie) win the final of FameLab, which is like the X Factor for scientists - great work Tom!

Just a quick one... Here's a link to campaign to stop libel law being used to silence debate about dodgy science.  Click the button below to read about the Simon Singh case and add your support to the campaign.

...well, nearly everyone.  I had an odd moment at a conference this week when, after someone had given a nice talk someone else got up and was quite mean to them (in front of everyone there) about what they had just said!  Whilst this wasn't very nice, it got me thinking - I'd never really seen this happen before.  Then I thought some more and realised that this type of personal confrontation was really exceptional.  In fact, whenever I've been to a conference, workshop or summer school, I've always made new friends and had a great time.  Even when I was a new PhD student who knew very little I was always surprised how the most experience professors would be friendly and interested in my work.  So I thought I'd blog this as I had a bit of a revelation about one of the great things I've experienced in a science career: nearly everyone is really nice and shares a real passion for everyone's work.  Of course, because everyone is so friendly it means that we can disagree about science things knowing that we can all enjoy a pint together afterwards!

[Ok, so I’m a bit slow about posting this one but I thought it was so important that it was better late than never.]

There was some really significant research in one of the most important science journals in January which was covered by a lot of the newspapers and TV news.  In short, scientists now know that the Antarctic is warming and that the warming is not natural – it is as a result of human activity.  This sounds like a pretty small achievement but it’s actually quite hard to do as there aren’t any decent, long term weather observations from the continent.  To complicate things the atmospheric flow in this region makes it hard to pick out the different temperature signals (I know quite a lot about this latter point as my PhD research was on that subject).  Anyway, the take home message is that there is now evidence of human induced climate change on every continent on Earth.  The question is when are we going to do anything about it…

Apologies for not updating the blog recently - my excuse is shown below in the picture.  We had a lovely little boy recently and he's been taking up loads of my time but it's all worth it!  So, we'll see how this impacts on my work in the coming months...

I am currently very jealous of my boss and just about everyone else who works in my office as they are all in Chile for 5 weeks working on a really exciting experiment.  They are flying through the vast layers of thin cloud that develop off the western coast of South America to try and understand how these clouds develop and what impact they have on climate.  The satellite image here shows the cloud a few days ago and you can see how far it extends!  If you want to know more then take a look at the project blog where some of the British guys out there (it is a big, international project) are leaving updates on what's happening: http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/blogs/story5.aspx

Gruezi!  I've been to Switzerland for a couple of weeks and had a great, as well as tiring, time.  I went to Zurich for a week to talk to a couple of the scientists there about a little project I thought we could do.  It was really interesting to see how the work we have each been doing could be combined to show something new.  There's still a bit of work to do but it's really given me some new enthusiasm for my work.  The trip was paid for by the Royal Society and I made sure I had a few free days to look around Zurich (great art gallery) and go on a couple of day trips to Scaffhaussen, the Rhine Falls (Europe's largest waterfall) and Luzern (beautiful lake).

I also went on a summer school further south in Switzerland in the Alps.  I really enjoy summer schools as they are aimed at early career scientists so there are a lot of people with new and exciting ideas as well as the much more experienced scientists who come along to do the teaching.  It's also really good to talk to these experienced scientists in a really relaxed environment.  I definitely learnt a lot from the summer school, had a lot of fun (the picture below is from a hike we all went on) and made some new friends!

 I was at the Latitude Festival over the weekend, which was really good by the way – lots of great bands and comedians and authors etc.  But why am I mentioning this?  Well, during the set of Sigor Ros (an Icelandic band who make really interesting music) I had a great moment.  As well as there being a low, beautiful full moon, Jupiter was also really clear.  Then, the International Space Station (ISS) made a pass overhead!  Ok, so it only looks like a small bright dot making an arc across the sky but it’s amazing that it’s so easy to see (the photo below was taken using a slow shutter speed to show its path).  Have a look at Heavens Above if you’d like to see when and where you can see the ISS yourself.

Hola!  I’ve just got back from Mexico after a trip to the International Conference on Clouds and Precipitation in Cancun.  It’s really useful to get to conferences not only to find out what other people are doing and to tell them about your own work but to also think about what you’re going to get up to in the future.  I’ve certainly come back with lots of ideas that, once I’ve got over the jetlag, I’ll be working on with a lot more enthusiasm than a couple of weeks ago!  It’s great to get away when someone else is paying for it.  As I was sitting in the hotel pool having a beer after a game of volleyball with some new friends it struck me that it really is quite a good job that I have.  It can be hard work at times but the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

I also took a week off work before the conference to have a look around the Yucatan peninsula.  I went to some of the famous Mayan ruin sites, went swimming in some of the underground river system of the peninsula and went bird watching and boating at an amazing Biosphere Reserve.  I also had a go at scuba diving, which was really nice as the ocean was really clear and there were loads of corals and fish.  I wish I had a bit longer to look around the Yucatan!  I’d never really thought of going to Mexico before but it really was a great experience.

I was at the Cheltenham Science Festival with NOISE yesterday - it was great fun but really tiring!  NOISEmakers have been doing experiments on the NOISE stand in the festival's Discover Zone during the festival and I did a few demonstrations of things related to weather phenomena, such as: de-pressurising marshmallows; the "lager lamp"; making a cloud in a bottle and; sucking a boiled egg into a bottle.  You can find instructions of how to do some of these fun experiments on the NOISE experiments page.

I also went to a couple of the lectures at the festival.  There was a session about astrobiology, which featured a talk by a fellow NOISEmaker - Lewis Dartnell.  His talk was on how we are trying to find life elsewhere in the universe and was really interesting.  I also went to a session called Bad Science, which was very amusing.  This talk was by Ben Goldacre, who writes a great column in the Guardian newspaper about all the rubbish science stories that appear in the media.  If you're interested in that sort of thing (it's also very funny), have a look at the Bad Science website.

Well, it took me a while to get round to talking about climate change, which is one of the reasons why I became interested in atmospheric science in the first place, but here we are.  The reason for this blog entry is that I organised a Cafe Scientifique (think informal science meeting in a cafe where everyone is encouraged to have a say on the topic, see their website to find a meeting near you) on the subject of "Who pays for climate change?".  It was very interesting but a little depressing; everyone seemed to think that we would continue burning fossil fuels until they are all gone, oh dear.  This isn't good news and perhaps it means that we really ought to be thinking more about ways of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or catching and storing it as it is emitted from power stations etc.  This, in turn, creates a big oppotunity for scientists and engineers in the future.  If our civilisation is going to survive I think that we need all our best minds working on these problems.  I hope some of you out there are inspired and enthused enough about this issue to help out the rest of us... I expect there's some money in it as well ;)

I guess the first thing to say on this subject is that publishing papers is very important in a scientific career - if nobody else knows what you're doing or why it's important then there's little point in doing it. You start to learn how to write scientifically when you write up scientific experiments at school and I think that it takes an entire career to become a good writer, I'm certainly still learning!

Publishing papers is a long process and it struck me today that I'm currently at three of the most important stages of publishing with three different papers. I'm just about to submit one to a journal, so this is when you're still enthusiastic about the work as you've just finished it. I've also just heard that another paper I submitted a while ago has been accepted for publication, which is great news but it feels like more of a relief than a great achievement as the other scientists who reviewed it made me make a lot of changes before it was accepted by the journal. Finally, I've just had another paper printed (see the picture for the first page) - this is when it gets sent out into the world looking all smart for everyone else to read, which is a little nerve-wracking!

I helped organise a Royal Meteorological Society meeting in Manchester this week on "Ice in the atmosphere".  It was pretty interesting, even though its not really my area of research.  The most interesting thing, though, was this little video of rain from a radar based in Hampshire.  It shows a cloud that is raining.  However, in the higher levels of the cloud (where it's really cold) the precipitation starts out as ice and snow, which falls much slower than rain.  If you look closly at about 2 km you can see the point where the ice and snow melts and becomes rain (this is known as the melting layer), which then falls much quicker.  Cool, uh?  So, just to sum up, most rain that falls over the UK starts off as ice and snow and only melts on its way down.

Thanks to RAL/University of Reading for the video.