On Friday November 30th, Prof. Paul Williams and I ran a ‘pop-up science’ station at the Natural History Museum’s “Lates” event (these are held on the last Friday of each month; the museum is open for all until 10pm, with additional events and activities). Our station was entitled “Turbulence Ahead”, and focused on communicating research under two themes:
- Improving the predictability of clear-air turbulence (CAT) for aviation
- The impact of climate change on aviation, particularly in terms of increasing CAT
There were several other stations, all run by NERC-funded researchers. Our stall went ‘live’ at 6 PM, and from that point on we were speaking almost constantly for the next 3.5 hours – with hundreds (not an exaggeration!) of people coming to our stall to find out more. Neither of us were able to take much of a break, and I’ve never had quite such a sore voice!
Our discussions covered:
- What is clear-air turbulence (CAT) and why is it hazardous to aviation?
- How do we predict CAT? How has Paul’s work improved this?
- How is CAT predicted to change in the future? Why?
- What other ways does climate change affect aviation?
Those who came to our stall asked some very intelligent questions, and neither of us encountered a ‘climate denier’ – since we were speaking about a very applied impact of climate change, this was heartening. This impact of climate change is not often considered – it’s not as obvious as heatwaves or melting ice, but is a very real threat as shown in recent studies (e.g. Storer et al. 2017). It was a challenge to explain some of these concepts to the general public – some had heard of the jet stream, others had not, whilst some were physicists… and even the director of the British Geological Survey, John Ludden, turned up! It was interesting to hear from so many people who were self-titled “nervous flyers” and deeply concerned about the future potential for more unpleasant journeys.
I found the evening very rewarding; it was interesting to gauge a perspective of how the public perceive a scientist and their work, and it was amazing to see so many curious minds wanting to find out more about subjects with which they are not so familiar.
#NERCImpact Awards 2018 finalist @DrPaulDWilliams is talking about clear air turbulence at #NHMLates tonight @NHM_London pic.twitter.com/Mctdil11c9
— NERC (@NERCscience) November 30, 2018
My involvement with this event stems from my MMet dissertation work with Paul and Tom Frame looking at the North Atlantic jet stream. Changes in the jet stream have large impacts on transatlantic flights (Williams 2016) and the frequency and intensity of CAT. Meanwhile, Paul was a finalist for the 2018 NERC Impact Awards in the Societal Impact category for his work on improving turbulence forecasts – he finished as runner-up in the ceremony which was held on Monday December 3rd.
I am very excited to have won a prize of £5,000 in the #NERCImpact Awards, for making flights smoother and safer through our turbulence research.
Congratulations to all the finalists — what a fantastic array of NERC-funded projects making a real difference to people’s lives! pic.twitter.com/N1guMSys3k
— Paul Williams (@DrPaulDWilliams) December 4, 2018
So, yes, there may indeed be turbulent times ahead – but this Friday evening certainly went smoothly!
Email: s.h.lee@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Twitter: @SimonLeeWx
References
Storer, L. N., P. D. Williams, and M. M. Joshi, 2017: Global Response of Clear-Air Turbulence to Climate Change. Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, 9979-9984, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074618
Williams, P. D., 2016: Transatlantic flight times and climate change. Environ. Res. Lett., 11, 024008, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/2/024008.
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