Author Archives: hjia

Characteristics and enhanced quality control of drifting buoy observations of sea surface temperature from the International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS)

By Simone Morak-Bozzo Over the last two decades drifting buoys have become the most prevalent in situ measurement method for sea surface temperature(SST). Drifting buoy data are particularly popular because of their high spatial and temporal coverage. Their freedom of … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Data collection, Data processing, earth observation, Measurements and instrumentation | Leave a comment

Smoke, science, and sharks

By Ross Herbert In the August of 2017 the Cloud-Aerosol-Radiation Interactions and Forcing – Year 2017 (CLARIFY) measurement campaign took place on a tiny island in the middle of the southeast Atlantic Ocean where we were surrounded by whales, sharks, … Continue reading

Posted in Atlantic, Atmospheric chemistry, Atmospheric circulation, Atmospheric optics, Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Clouds, Data collection, earth observation, Energy budget, Environmental hazards, Greenhouse gases, Measurements and instrumentation, Microphysics, Numerical modelling, Solar radiation, Weather forecasting, Wind | Tagged | Leave a comment

Determining the Earth’s energy and water cycles

By Christopher Thomas The Earth’s energy and water cycles govern the distribution and movement of energy and water in the atmosphere, oceans and land. Both energy and water are constantly being transported between different regions of the globe, and the … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Data processing, earth observation, Energy budget, ENSO, Hydrology, Solar radiation, Water cycle | Leave a comment

Storylines of regional climate change

By Giuseppe Zappa  An outstanding question for climate science is quantifying how global warming will regionally affect the aspects of climate that are most directly relevant to society, such as precipitation, windiness and extremes. But achieving this task is proving … Continue reading

Posted in Atmospheric circulation, Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Greenhouse gases, Numerical modelling, Stratosphere | Tagged | Leave a comment

How the Hadley Cells work

By Gui-Ying Yang The Hadley Cell, named after British meteorologist George Hadley who discovered this tropical atmospheric overturning circulation, is one of the basic concepts in weather and climate. Figure 1 shows the zonal mean overturning circulation in a latitude height … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, earth observation, Equatorial waves, extratropical cyclones, Tropical convection, Waves, Wind | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Mechanisms of Climate Change in the Indian Summer Monsoon

By Jon Shonk Over one billion people are reliant on the rainfall of the Indian Summer Monsoon. During the wet season, which usually spans June to September, some parts of India receive over 90% of their total annual rainfall. Deficits … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Environmental hazards, Flooding, Monsoons, Numerical modelling, Oceans | Tagged | Leave a comment

Image conscious atmospheric science

By Giles Harrison A frequently-heard mantra in physics is “Like charges repel and unlike charges attract”. At face value this paraphrase of Coulomb’s Law seems useful for clouds too, as, quite apart from the obvious example of thunderclouds, water drops … Continue reading

Posted in Clouds, earth observation, Measurements and instrumentation, Microphysics, Numerical modelling, University of Reading | Tagged | Leave a comment

Wind generation in the UK during the summer of 2018

By Daniel Drew The record breaking summer of 2018 has featured in a number of recent blog posts (link1 and link 2), but one area not discussed is the impact of the prevailing hot, sunny and calm conditions on the … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Historical climatology, Renewable energy, University of Reading | Leave a comment

Clouds, climate and the Roaring 40s

By Richard Allan In our new research we have traced large and long-standing biases in computer simulations of climate, affecting the tempestuous Southern Ocean, to errors in cloud that emerge rapidly within the atmospheric models. Biases evolve over time through … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Climate modelling, Clouds, earth observation, Energy budget, Numerical modelling, Oceans, Solar radiation | Leave a comment

Why was the sky Orange?

By William Davies I was sitting in my house one morning in October 2017, engrossed in what I was doing. Gradually I noticed that an eerie darkness was smothering the natural light in the room. I stopped and looked outside. … Continue reading

Posted in Aerosols, Atmospheric chemistry, Atmospheric optics, Climate, Climate modelling, earth observation, Environmental hazards, Numerical modelling, Remote sensing, University of Reading | Leave a comment