Author: Chloe Brimicombe

CMIP6 Data Hackathon

Chloe BrimicombeLeave a comment

Brian Lo – brian.lo@pgr.reading.ac.uk 

Chloe Brimicombe – c.r.brimicombe@pgr.reading.ac.uk 

What is it?

A hackathon, from the words hack (meaning exploratory programming, not the alternate meaning of breaching computer security) and marathon, is usually a sprint-like event where programmers collaborate intensively with the goal of creating functioning software by the end of the event. From 2 to 4 June 2021, more than a hundred early career climate scientists and enthusiasts (mostly PhDs and Postdocs) from UK universities took part in a climate hackathon organised jointly by Universities of Bristol, Exeter and Leeds, and the Met Office. The common goal was to quickly analyse certain aspects of Climate Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) data to output cutting-edge research that could be worked into a published material and shown in this year’s COP26. 

Before the event, attendees signed up to their preferred project from a choice of ten. Topics ranged from how climate change will affect migration of arctic terns to the effects of geoengineering by stratospheric sulfate injections and more… Senior academics from a range of disciplines and institutions led each project. 

Group photo of participants at the CMIP6 Data Hackathon

How is this virtual hackathon different to a usual hackathon? 

Like many other events this year, the hackathon took place virtually, using a combination of video conferencing (Zoom) for seminars and teamwork, and discussion forums (Slack). 

Brian: 

Compared to two 24-hour non-climate related hackathons I previously attended, this one was spread out for three days, so I managed not to disrupt my usual sleep schedules! The experience of pair programming with one or two other team members was as easy, since I shared one of my screens on Zoom breakout rooms throughout the event. What I really missed were the free meals, plenty of snacks and drinks usually on offer at normal hackathons to keep me energised while I programmed. 

Chloe:

I’ve been to a climate campaign hackathon before, and I did a hackathon style event to end a group project during the computer science part of my undergraduate; we made the boardgame buccaneer in java. But this was set out completely differently. And, it was not as time intensive as those which was nice. I missed not being in a room with those you are on a project with and still missing out on free food – hopefully not for too much longer. But we made use of Zoom and Slack for communication. And Jasmin and the version control that git offers with individuals working on branches and then these were merged at the end of the hackathon. 

What did we do? 

Brian: 

Project 2: How well do the CMIP6 models represent the tropical rainfall belt over Africa? 

Using Gaussian parameters in Nikulin & Hewitson 2019 to describe the intensity, mean meridional position and width of the tropical rainfall belt (TRB), the team I was in investigated three aspects of CMIP6 models for capturing the Africa TRB, namely the model biases, projections and whether there was any useful forecast information in CMIP6 decadal hindcasts. These retrospective forecasts were generated under the Decadal Climate Prediction Project (DCPP), with an aim of investigating the skill of CMIP models in predicting climate variations from a year to a decade ahead. Our larger group of around ten split ourselves amongst these three key aspects. I focused on aspect of CMIP6 decadal hindcasts, where I compared different decadal models at different model lead times with three observation sources. 

Chloe: 

Project 10: Human heat stress in a warming world 

Our team leader Chris had calculated the universal thermal climate index (UTCI) – a heat stress index for a bunch of the CMIP6 climate models. He was looking into bias correction against the ERA5 HEAT reanalysis dataset whilst we split into smaller groups. We looked at a range of different things from how the intensity of heat stress changed to how the UTCI compared to mortality. I ended up coding with one of my (5) PhD supervisors Claudia Di Napoli and we made amongst other things the gif below.  

https://twitter.com/ChloBrim/status/1400780543193649153
Annual means of the UTCI for RCP4.5 (medium emissions) projection from 2020 to 2099.

Would we recommend meteorology/climate-related hackathon? 

Brian: 

Yes! The three days was a nice break from my own radar research work. The event was nevertheless good training for thinking quickly and creatively to approach research questions other than those in my own PhD project. The experience also sharpened my coding and data exploration skills, while also getting the chance to quickly learn advanced methods for certain software packages (such as xarray and iris). I was amazed at the amount of scientific output achieved in only three short days! 

Chloe: 

Yes, but also make sure if it’s online you block out the time and dedicate all your focus to the hackathon. Don’t be like me. The hackathon taught me more about python handling of netcdfs, but I am not yet a python plotting convert, there are some things R is just nicer for. And I still love researching heat stress and heatwaves, so that’s good!  

We hope that the CMIP hackathon runs again next year to give more people the opportunity to get involved. 

The EGU Experience 2021: a PhD student perspective

Chloe BrimicombeLeave a comment

Max Coleman – m.r.coleman@pgr.reading.ac.uk

Chloe Brimicombe – c.r.brimicombe@pgr.reading.ac.uk

The European Geoscience Union General Assembly is one of the big annual conferences for atmospheric science (and Earth sciences more generally). The two of us were fortunate to have the opportunity to attend and present our research at this year’s vEGU21 conference. As has been done in previous years like in 2019 we’re here to give you an account of our EGU experience 😀 (so you can compare our virtual experience with the previous posts if you like 😉) 

Entrance hall to virtual EGU (Source: Linda Speight) 

What was vEGU21? 

EGUv21 was the general assembly for 2021 online. It took place from the 19th to the 30th April EGU. Through an impressive virtual conference center and mostly Zoom. 

What was your presentation on? 

Chloe –  I presented borderless heat stress in the extreme heat events session, which is based on a paper currently under review at Earth’s Future, where we show that heat stress is growing in the area during the month of August. The invited speaker to the session was Laura Suarez-Gutierrez and it was a great presentation on the dynamics of increasing heat extremes with climate change across Europe. I really enjoyed learning about the latest research in the extreme heat area. 

Max – I presented on my work using model nudging to study aerosol radiative adjustments. I presented in the session ‘Chemistry, Aerosols and Radiative Forcing in CMIP6-era models’, which was convened and hosted by Reading’s very own Bill Collins. There were many interesting presentations in this session, including presentations on the balance between climate and air quality benefits by Robert Allen and Steve Turnock; a summary of the Aerosol Chemistry Model Intercomparison Project (AerChemMIP) findings by UoR’s Gill Thornhill; and a personal favourite concerned the impacts of different emissions pathways in Africa on local and global climate, and local air pollution effects on mortality, presented by Chris Wells. 

Chloe presenting: would win an award for most interesting screenshot. (Source: Maureen Wanzala) 

What were your favourite aspects of the conference? 

Chloe – Apart from my session one of my favorite’s was on climate services. This focused on the application of meteorological and hydrology data to services for example health heat impacts and growing grapes and olives. I also enjoyed the panel on the climate and ecological emergency in light of COVID-19 including Katherine Hayhoe and the session on equality, diversity and inclusion; it was interesting how ‘listening’ to those impacted was an overlapping theme in these. The weirdest, loveliest experience was my main supervisor sending me a colouring page of her face. 

Max – As with any conference it was a great opportunity to learn about the latest research in my specific field, as well as learning about exciting developments in other fields, from machine learning applications in earth science to observational studies of methane emissions. Particularly, it’s a nice change from just reading about them in papers.Having conversations with presenters gives you the opportunity to really dive in and find out what motivated their research initially and discuss future applications. For example, one conversation I had went from discussing their application of unsupervised machine learning in classifying profiles of earth system model output, to learning about it’s potential for use in model intercomparisons.  

Katherine Hayhoe in the session Climate and Ecological Emergency: can a pandemic help save us? (Source: Chloe Brimicombe) 

What was your least favourite aspect? 

Chloe – I did manage to do a little networking. But I’d love to experience an in person conference where I present. I have never presented my research in real life at a conference or research group/department seminar 😱. We also miss out on a lot of free food and pens not going to any in life conferences, which is what research is about 😉. Also, I find it difficult to stay focused on the conference when it’s online.  

Max – For me the structure of two minute summaries followed by breakout Zoom rooms for each speaker had some definite drawbacks. For topics outside one’s own field, I found it difficult to really learn much from many of the summaries – it’s not easy to fit something interesting for experts and non-experts into two minutes! In theory you can go speak to presenters in their breakout rooms, but there’s something awkward about entering a zoom breakout room with just you and the presenter, particularly when you aren’t sure exactly how well you understood their two minute summary.  

In light of your vEGU21 experience, what are your thoughts on remote vs traditional conferencing? 

Max – Overall I think virtual conferencing has a way to go before it can match up to the in person experience. There were the classic technical issues of anything hosted remotely: the ‘I think you’re on mute’ experience, other microphone issues, and even the conference website crashing on the first day of scientific sessions (though the organisers did a swift job getting the conference back up and running). But there’s also the less obvious, such as it feeling actually quite a lonely experience. I’ve only been to a couple of in-person conferences, but there were always some people I knew and could meet up with. But it’s challenging to recreate this online, especially for early career researchers who don’t have as many established connections, and particularly at a big conference like the EGU general assembly. Perhaps a big social media presence can somewhat replace this, but not everyone (including myself!) is a big social media user. .  

On the other hand, it’s great that we can still have conferences during a global pandemic, and no doubt is better than an absence of them entirely. Above all else, it’s also much greener and more accessible to those with less available funding for conference travel (though new challenges of accessibility, such as internet quality and access, undoubtedly arise). Plus, the facility to upload various display materials and people to look back at them whenever they like, regardless of time zones, is handy.  

Chloe – I’d just add, as great as Twitter is and can be for promoting your research, it’s not the same as going for a good old cup of tea (or cocktail) with someone. Also, you can have the biggest brightest social media, but actually be terrible at conveying your research in person. 

Summary 

Overall it was interesting to take part in vEGU21, and we were both glad we went. It didn’t quite live up to the in person experience – and there is definitely room for improvements for virtual conferencing – but it’s great we can still have these experiences, albeit online.  

Main challenges for extreme heat risk communication

Chloe BrimicombeLeave a comment

Chloe Brimicombe – c.r.brimicombe@pgr.reading.ac.uk, @ChloBrim

For my PhD, I research heatwaves and heat stress, with a focus on the African continent. Here I show what the main challenges are for communicating heatwave impacts inspired by a presentation given by Roop Singh of the Red Cross Climate Center at Understanding Risk Forum 2020.  

There is no universal definition of heatwaves 

Having no agreed definition of a heatwave (also known as extreme heat events) is a huge challenge in communicating risk. However, there is a guideline definition by the World Meteorological Organisation and for the UK an agreed definition as of 2019. In simple terms a heatwave is: 

“A period of above average temperatures of 3 or more days in a region’s warm season (i.e. all year in the tropics and in the summer season elsewhere)”  

We then have heat stress which is an impact of heatwaves, and is the killer aspect of heat. Heat stress is: 

“Build-up of body heat as a result of exertion or external environment”(McGregor, 2018) 

Attention Deficit 

Heatwaves receive low attention in comparison to other natural hazards I.e., Flooding, one of the easiest ways to appreciate this attention deficit is through Google search trends. If we compare ‘heat wave’ to ‘flood’ both designated as disaster search types, you can see that a larger proportion of searches over time are for ‘flood’ in comparison to ‘heat wave’.  

Figure 1: Showing ‘Heat waves’ (blue)  vs ‘Flood’ (red) Disaster Search Types interest over time taken from: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F01qw8g,%2Fm%2F0dbtv 

On average flood has 28% search interest which is over 10 times the amount of interest for heat wave. And this is despite Heatwaves being named the deadliest hydro-meteorological hazard from 2015-2019 by the World Meteorological Organization. Attention is important if someone can remember an event and its impacts easily, they can associate this with the likelihood of it happening. This is known as the availability bias and plays a key role in risk perception. 

Lack of Research and Funding 

One impact of the attention deficit on extreme heat risk, is there is not ample research and funding on the topic – it’s very patchy. Let’s consider a keyword search of academic papers for ‘heatwave*’ and ‘flood*’ from Scopus an academic database.  

Figure 2: Number of ‘heatwave*’ vs number of ‘flood*’ academic papers from Scopus. 

Research on floods is over 100 times bigger in quantity than heatwaves. This is like what we find for google searches and the attention deficit, and reveals a research bias amongst these hydro-meteorological hazards. And is mirrored by what my research finds for the UK, much more research on floods in comparison to heatwaves (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.10.021). Our paper is the first for the UK to assess the barriers, causes and solutions for providing adequate research and policy for heatwaves. The motivation behind the paper came from an assignment I did during my masters focusing on UK heatwave policy, where I began to realise how little we in the UK are prepared for these events, which links up nicely with my PhD. For more information you can see my article and press release on the same topic. 

Heat is an invisible risk 

Figure 3: Meme that sums up not perceiving heat as a risk, in comparison, to storms and flooding.

Heatwaves are not something we can touch and like Climate Change, they are not ‘lickable’ or visible. This makes it incredibly difficult for us to perceive them as a risk. And this is compounded by the attention deficit; in the UK most people see heatwaves as a ‘BBQ summer’ or an opportunity to go wild swimming or go to the beach.  

And that’s really nice, but someone’s granny could be experiencing hospitalising heat stress in a top floor flat as a result of overheating that could result in their death. Or for example signal failures on your railway line as a result of heat could prevent you from getting into work, meaning you lose out on pay. I even know someone who got air lifted from the Lake District in their youth as a result of heat stress.  

 A quote from a BBC one program on wild weather in 2020 sums up overheating in homes nicely:

“It is illegal to leave your dog in a car to overheat in these temperatures in the UK, why is it legal for people to overheat in homes at these temperatures“

For Africa the perception amongst many is ‘Africa is hot’ so heatwaves are not a risk, because they are ‘used to exposure’ to high temperatures. First, not all of Africa is always hot, that is in the same realm of thinking as the lyrics of the 1984 Band Aid Single. Second, there is not a lot of evidence, with many global papers missing out Africa due to a lack of data. But, there is research on heatwaves and we have evidence they do raise death rates in Africa (research mostly for the West Sahel, for example Burkina Faso) amongst other impacts including decreased crop yields.  

What’s the solution? 

Talk about heatwaves and their impacts. This sounds really simple, but I’ve noticed a tendency of a proportion of climate scientists to talk about record breaking temperatures and never mention land heatwaves (For example the Royal Institute Christmas Lectures 2020). Some even make a wild leap from temperature straight to flooding, which is just painful for me as a heatwave researcher. 

Figure 4: A schematic of heatwaves researchers and other climate scientists talking about climate change. 

So let’s start by talking about heatwaves, heat stress and their impacts.