Author Archives: danaallen

From Falling Paper Strips, Tossed Coins To Settling Snowflakes

By Majid Hassan Khan Did you notice money raining down in part three of the Spanish TV series “Money Heist” (Spanish: La casa de Papel, “The House of Paper”) on Netflix? A blimp flew over Madrid and showered money. These … Continue reading

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Data assimilation under dramatic growth of observational data and rapid advances in computer performance

By: Guannan Hu The importance of data assimilation Data assimilation (DA) is a technique used to produce initial conditions for numerical weather prediction (NWP). In NWP, computer models describing the evolution of the atmosphere are used to predict future weather … Continue reading

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The Other Climate Impact Of Aviation

By: Ella Gilbert In-flight entertainment Picture yourself in the window seat of an aeroplane, cruising along at 30,000 feet, occasionally admiring the clouds below and watching that cheesy blockbuster you were too shy to go and see in the cinema. … Continue reading

Posted in aviation, Climate, Microphysics | Leave a comment

Soil Moisture Monitoring with Satellite Radar

By: Keith Morrison-Department of Meteorology & Will Maslanka-Department of Geography & Environmental Science Everyone knows about the impacts from intense and/or prolonged rainfall – flooding, like that experienced in the Thames Basin during the Summer of 2007, and the Winter of … Continue reading

Posted in Climate, earth observation, radar, Remote sensing, soil moisture | Leave a comment

Rescuing early satellite data to improve long-term estimates of past weather.

By: Jade Westfoot  This post is contributed by Jade Westfoot, a year-12 school student who did work experience in the department recently. During her week with us, Jade worked with Drs. Jon Mittaz and Tom Hall on rescuing historic satellite … Continue reading

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The Future of Arctic Sea Ice

By: Rebecca Frew It is well documented in scientific studies and the news (recent example here) that the summer extent of Arctic sea ice has been declining rapidly in response to global warming. As the summer sea ice shrinks and … Continue reading

Posted in Arctic, Climate, Climate change, Cryosphere, Polar | Leave a comment

Three Flavours of Pykrete

By: David Livings Three Flavours of Pykrete A few years ago, Giles Foden published a novel called Turbulence. Most of the book is about a young meteorologist in the second world war, but there’s a framing story set in the 1980s, … Continue reading

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Can You Guess The Ingredients Of A Cake?

By: Amos Lawless “Mmm this cake is lovely, what’s in it?” “Try to guess!” How often have we had that response from a friend or colleague who is proud of the cake they have just baked? And we usually try … Continue reading

Posted in data assimilation, earth observation, Teaching & Learning | Leave a comment

Data Assimilation Improves Space Weather Forecasting Skill

By: Matthew Lang Over the past few years, I have been working on using data assimilation methodologies that are prevalent in meteorology to improve forecasts of space weather events (Lang et al. 2017; Lang and Owens 2019). Data assimilation does … Continue reading

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Cold Winter Weather: Despite or Because of Global Warming?

By: Marlene Kretschmer This year’s winter was cold. There was heavy snowfall across the UK, Europe and parts of the United States including Texas. This severe weather came with significant societal and economic impacts. Every time cold extremes like this … Continue reading

Posted in Arctic, Climate, Climate change, Cryosphere, Polar | Leave a comment