Author Archives: Stephen Burt

Understanding Summer Flash Flooding

Posted on 20 June, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Adrian Champion ‘Flash flooding’ is flooding that only lasts between a few hours and a day and typically has very little warning. There are many causes of flash flooding, from the meteorological conditions that lead to the rainfall that … Continue reading →

Posted in Environmental hazards, Hydrology, Numerical modelling, Urban meteorology | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Standing up for Science

Posted on 13 June, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Joanne Thomas, Project & Events Coordinator, Sense about Science Voice of Young Science (VoYS) is a dynamic network of more than 2000 early career researchers and scientists across science, engineering and medicine. VoYS members are committed to playing an … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate | Leave a comment

The interaction between aerosols and clouds

Posted on 6 June, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Nicolas Bellouin As part of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), I lead an activity that will provide in August new estimates of radiative forcing of climate due to changes in atmospheric composition. One of the radiative forcing mechanisms … Continue reading →

Posted in Aerosols, Climate modelling, Numerical modelling | Leave a comment

Predictions and errors

Posted on 30 May, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Javier Amezcua Predicting is one of the most ambitious goals of science. It goes beyond describing and explaining, and it attempts to “tell the future”. The prediction process has the following basic steps: We have an estimate of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Numerical modelling, Weather forecasting | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Random Blog

Posted on 23 May, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Peter Clark As a young scientist I was introduced to turbulent flow in the traditional way – we consider an ‘infinite ensemble of realisations’ of a random flow, and split each realisation into the average over the ensemble and … Continue reading →

Posted in Numerical modelling, Weather forecasting | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Characterising extreme event occurrence

Posted on 16 May, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Reinhard Schiemann When presented with a new data sample, the first thing many of us scientists do is to characterise it in terms of two numbers: the average or mean value of the sample, and the spread or variance of … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, extremes, Numerical modelling | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

When Did Fronts First Appear in the Met Office’s Daily Weather Report?

Posted on 9 May, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By David Livings One of the good things that can now be found on the web is a complete series of the Met Office’s Daily Weather Report going back to 1860. An overview of the early history of the report … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical climatology, History of Science | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A PhD student’s overview of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2016

Posted on 2 May, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By David Flack Last week (18 – 22 April) 13,650 scientists from 109 countries descended upon Vienna for the European Geosciences Union (EGU) general assembly. This includes a range of different disciplines, not just those associated with meteorology and hydrology, … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences, Environmental hazards, Hydrology, Students | Tagged | Leave a comment

Polar Prediction School

Posted on 25 April, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Jonny Day During the last 2 weeks Dr Jonny Day spent two weeks lecturing and coordinating a Polar Prediction School for graduate students and early career researchers. The school is a joint initiative from the World Weather Research Programme … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Climate change, Cryosphere, Measurements and instrumentation, Polar, University of Reading | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Energy flows, rainfall patterns and climate

Posted on 11 April, 2016 by Stephen Burt

By Richard Allan The subtle differences in the way heat is distributed between the northern and southern hemispheres, either side of the equator, are important in determining global rainfall patterns and climate. Over many tens of thousands of years, periodic … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Monsoons, Numerical modelling | Tagged | Leave a comment