Communication

Student Perspectives: Conference and Workshop Experiences

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By Ana Arama (ana.arama@pgr.reading.ac.uk), Jake Keller (j.p.keller@pgr.reading.ac.uk), Ken Rui Fong (kenrui.fong@pgr.reading.ac.uk) and Maia Arama (m.arama@pgr.reading.ac.uk)

Introduction

Attending conferences and workshops is an essential part of every academic’s life (and perhaps non-academics as well, since some of us will one day leave academia!), and therefore it is only natural that us PhD students get to go as well. In this blog Maia, Jake, Ken and Ana tell us about their experiences of attending some of these scholarly gatherings this year.

Editors’ tip for first-years: though most of these opportunities are communicated to you by your supervisors, research groups or PhD admin, it is good to keep an eye out yourself for conferences that may have skipped their radar. Following key organizations on LinkedIn is always helpful for that. In fact, that is where Ana found out about the energy modelling workshop!

Maia Arama – RMetS Early Career and Student Conference

At the beginning of July, I attended the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) Early Career and Student Conference. This 3-day conference is designed for early career researchers, undergraduates, master’s and PhD students. The conference location changes every year; this time it was held at the University of Exeter.

The programme opened with a relaxed social (drinks and pizza) on Sunday. Based on my experience, I highly recommend going to pre-conference socials. I felt this was the ideal way to meet other conference delegates which made walking into the first full day of the conference less intimidating.

Over the following two and a half days, I attended a series of 15-minute talks covering themes relating to weather and climate extremes, atmospheric chemistry, climate impacts, and machine learning. Poster sessions were in the late afternoon on the first two days. I found that presenting my research as a poster was great practice for learning how to build a story for my research and defending my methodological choices – both useful skills to have in the lead-up to the monitoring committee meetings we have here at Reading!

The conference also included a workshop on storytelling for researchers and a panel on science communication, both good reminders that research isn’t just about the work itself but also how we communicate it. Frequent coffee breaks provided ample opportunity for networking and socialising, and a vegan/vegetarian BBQ and quiz on the first day were also a lot of fun.

Overall, I had a genuinely positive experience at this conference. Hearing everyone’s talks and discussing their posters was truly inspiring. As a PhD student, one unexpected highlight was connecting with other PhD students outside of the University of Reading. Being reminded that we all share the same struggles relating to data processing, setbacks and navigating PhD milestones despite different research areas was reassuring!

The conference environment was very relaxed and friendly, so I would highly recommend attending this conference if it’s your first time presenting or if you want something a bit less intimidating than the RMetS Annual Weather and Climate Conference!

More details about the conference can be found here: https://www.rmets.org/conference/early-career-and-student-conference-2026

Jake Keller- Diabatic Processes Workshop

This spring, I attended the Diabatic Processes Workshop in Wolkersdorf, Austria. The workshop brought together around 70 researchers from a wide range of universities and included both senior scientists and early-career researchers, such as me.

The programme was structured into seven presentation sessions over four days, covering topics such as jets, cyclones, predictability, convection, and more. In addition, two poster sessions showcased a broad range of research related to diabatic processes. I presented some of my relevant work in the predictability session, and I even had the opportunity to co-convene a session. The workshop concluded with group discussions, where participants considered the future direction of the field, focusing on what researchers can do next and identifying the data needed to advance our understanding.

Mealtimes were particularly valuable for informal discussions, allowing me to connect with researchers whose papers I had previously read and to ask them questions about their work. Regular coffee breaks also provided opportunities to follow up on presentations while they were still fresh in my mind!

Beyond the scientific content, the workshop provided an excellent opportunity to gain insight into the diverse topics currently being explored within an already specialised research area. Smaller, focused workshops like this also offer valuable opportunities for networking and make it easier to have more meaningful and extended conversations with other scientists.

Since the workshop, I have continued discussions with researchers conducting similar modelling experiments, and we are now sharing updates on our progress and results. I have also had the opportunity to speak with a visiting scientist who attended the workshop, discussing one of his papers that closely relates to my research.

In addition to building connections, these smaller workshops are highly rewarding. They create a strong sense of contributing to and advancing the field, something that isn’t always easy to feel during every stage of a PhD. I would highly recommend this type of workshop to other early-career researchers.

Further information on the workshop can be found here: https://diabatics2026.w.uib.no/

Ken Rui Fong- ParaChute Conference

I attended the ParaChute (“Understanding turbulence and convective processes”) conference held in Reading in July this year. The conference attracted many attendees from a wide range of universities and modelling centres from all over the globe, working across theory, modelling and observations. The conference talks were divided into seven themes across five days, touching on various aspects of convection & turbulence, such as grey-zone parametrization, observing systems and microphysics-turbulence coupling. I personally got to present a poster on my PhD project on grey-zone convection parametrization and benefited greatly from interesting discussions with other senior researchers working on modelling and convection.

Despite the range of topics and different disciplinary approaches, I found nearly all the sessions interesting and relevant because they are underpinned by the ‘grand challenge’ of convection & turbulence parametrization in high-resolution models. I also found it enlightening to hear from researchers from modelling centres talk about their experiences and challenges faced in deploying operational km-scale models and performing forecast verification at convective scales – it was a sobering reminder that many things still have to be done downstream of model development before we might see any gains realized.

Apart from the talks and poster sessions, the committee had organized social events on Wednesday afternoon, and we were given a choice of a tour of the university’s atmospheric observatory, or an orienteering course around the campus. I opted for the former since it would be my first time touring the observatory. The conference capped off with a panel discussion on Friday summarizing contributions from group discussions earlier in the week about the future of modelling and observing systems for convection and turbulence. All in all, I had an interesting time at the ParaChute conference, and hopefully I’ll be able to attend many more like it in the future!

Further information about the Parachute conference can be found at https://research.reading.ac.uk/parachute/.

PyPSA Energy Modelling Workshop, Ana Arama

This September, I attended the PyPSA Workshop held at the University of Birmingham. PyPSA stands for Python for Power System Analysis, and is a free, open-source modelling tool used to simulate and optimise energy systems.

The workshop lasted two days and featured a combination of lectures on PyPSA’s key features and hands-on examples demonstrating how to model different aspects of the energy system. There were five Jupyter notebooks which we could work through, each one focusing on a different aspect of PyPSA. They ranged from basic use cases of the tool to more advanced topics, such as incorporating uncertainty using stochastic modelling and security of electricity supply analysis under different scenarios, like gas price shocks. I particularly enjoyed learning how to use the stochastic modelling feature of PyPSA, since this is a feature that has only recently been added to the toolbox. It was a good way for me to see how uncertainty could be incorporated in energy modelling analysis.

Overall, the workshop was a good opportunity to learn more about the capabilities of PyPSA, and I think it was a good step towards increasing my energy modelling skills. I also found the environment of the workshop to be very relaxed, with plenty of time to ask questions about the various topics covered.

I would recommend this course to anyone who is fairly new to energy modelling and wants to gain a better understanding of how energy modelling tools can aid in power system planning as well as power system design under uncertainty. Although the course provides an introduction to PyPSA, I think it would be helpful to have some prior basic knowledge on terminology used in energy system modelling. I would also recommend doing some of the online examples on the PyPSA website to gain familiarity with the tool before attending the workshop.

The resources from the workshop can be found here: GitHub – pypsalabs/workshop-202609: Workshop materials for energy system modelling with PyPSA, Birmingham, September 2026. · GitHub

What’s it like to do a fellowship in Parliament? 

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By Juan Pablo Garcia Valencia (j.p.garciavalencia@pgr.reading.ac.uk)

In January of 2026, I paused my PhD to do a 3-month fellowship at the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST).  

This blog aims to give a summary of my experience, as well as some tips, tricks, and things to keep in mind if you’re interested in working in policy or science communication.  

What is POST?

The Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) is an impartial research and knowledge exchange service based in the UK Parliament. Their role is to ensure that members of parliament (including the House of Commons and House of Lords) have access to cutting-edge research evidence and expertise. It covers emerging or complex physical and social science topics, including health, the environment, housing and computing.

The Fellowship 

I first heard about the POST fellowship through a departmental seminar given by a previous POST fellow (shout out Helen Hooker!). From that moment, I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss, as it aligned perfectly with my interest in the science–policy interface. 

The fellowship provides an opportunity to gain real-world experience in the communication of research to policymakers. In this 3-month placement, fellows get the chance to research, write and publish an in-depth research briefing, called POSTnote, on a matter that was either requested by a Parliamentarian or identified as a topic of interest.  

The front page and the list of contents of the POSTnote – Here is the full briefing.

How does it work?  

Before you join, your research topic is agreed upon at a board meeting and communicated to you. Occasionally, you may get a choice between two topics, but most of the time, you are assigned a question that requires investigation.  

The topic will not be related to your PhD, and this is intentional. The aim is to help you write a briefing for parliamentarians who may have no prior knowledge of the subject. In many ways, the less you know at the start, the more likely you are to explain the topic in a simple, clear, and accessible way.  

To help you understand the topic, there is an extensive consultation process involving experts and stakeholders. By interviewing leading figures in the field, from academics to government officials, you will get a good understanding of the main themes, problems and concepts related to your topic and be able to write a well-informed, up-to-date briefing.  

And don’t worry if you have little to no interview experience (like I did), it’s definitely a skill that you perfect with practice, and your supervisor will help you prepare for them.  

Once you’ve completed the interviews, the writing stage begins. The briefings are just over 3,500 words long, so the challenge is often to condense all the valuable information you’ve just learnt. Again, this is a fantastic opportunity to develop your writing and communication skills. 

Your draft is then reviewed internally before being sent to stakeholders for external review, helping ensure that the final version is accurate, impartial, and comprehensive. 

Where is it?

The fellowship is based in Parliament itself, which is one of the best things about it. The POST offices (not to be confused with the actual post office inside Parliament…) are based just outside of the Palace of Westminster, about a 5-minute walk, in a nice and modern building. Most days, we would walk over to the Palace for lunch to enjoy the incredible views of the Terrace Cafeteria, one of the various (subsidised!) cafeterias in Parliament. 

The Palace of Westminster
A view from the Terrace Cafeteria

Pictures outside the Parliament

During your time there, you’re highly encouraged to make the most of being in such an amazing place by joining a Parliament tour, signing up to events in the Speaker’s House, going to the chamber for Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) or oral questions, attending the ‘All Parliamentary Party Group’ meetings, and so many other interesting things there are to do.  

At these events, it’s not uncommon to bump into politicians, public figures, and other fascinating people, which never failed to amaze me. Also, you can bring one or two guests into the Palace, which makes for great lunchtime catch-ups!  

Application process, tips and tricks

I believe the application process has changed slightly since I applied last year, but hopefully some of these tips are still relevant.  

The first step of the application was to fill in a document with many typical application questions, like “Tell me about a time you researched a completely new topic and how you did it”. My biggest recommendation for writing good answers to these is to follow the STAR method, focusing mainly on the Action and Result. This is what they are going to be most interested in: what exactly did you do, and what impact did it have?  

I also had to write a mock POSTnote. I spent some time identifying a topic that wasn’t already covered on the POST website but was currently relevant in political discussions. Reading one or two existing POSTnotes helped me get a feel for the tone and structure before writing my own briefing as clearly, impartially, and evidence-based as possible (the one on Public engagement with the energy transition could be a good start 🙂 ). A top tip to be impartial is to always state who said the point you’ve just made, i.e. “Researchers say…” or “The IPCC stated that…”. 

For the interview, roughly half of the questions focused on general competencies, while the rest was on the mock POSTnote. The emphasis wasn’t so much on the topic itself, but on your process. For example: 

  • How did you choose the topic? 
  • How did you organise your research and manage your time? 
  • How did you ensure impartiality? 

Caveats 

It’s worth noting that your experience may differ considerably depending on where you’re placed. 

Some fellows are based in Select Committees, where they engage more directly with science and policy by supporting scrutiny of government activity. Others are placed in the House of Commons Library, where they undertake work similar to POST but generally without the extensive interview process. 

One thing I would strongly recommend is attending in person as much as possible. This had a huge impact on my experience. Many of the most interesting opportunities arose spontaneously, and I was only able to take advantage of them because I happened to be in the office when someone mentioned them. Being physically present is one of the best ways to make the most of your time in Parliament. 

Pictures inside Parliament

Challenges and things to keep in mind

Although the experience was overwhelmingly positive, there are a few challenges worth highlighting.  

Firstly, I cannot stress enough how quickly the three months go! Deadlines can creep up surprisingly fast, making organisation and time management essential. Fortunately, because so many fellows have completed the programme before, there is an excellent Gantt chart and timeline available to help structure your work. I found this incredibly useful, although others preferred to develop their own systems.  

Another challenge is impartiality. When working for POST, you are expected to remain politically impartial both inside and outside the workplace, as you are effectively representing Parliament. This means thinking carefully before posting strongly partisan opinions on social media, for example.  

This can sometimes feel frustrating, particularly for scientists working in climate-related fields in the current political landscape. However, it is also an incredibly valuable skill that is difficult to develop elsewhere. I came to view it as an important learning experience rather than a limitation. 

Overall

To summarise, I would strongly encourage anyone with even a passing interest in policy, parliamentary processes, or science communication to apply for the fellowship. It’s a unique opportunity to learn how Parliament works while helping policymakers engage with emerging scientific issues. 

Feel free to email me as well if you have any questions; I would be very happy to answer.  

Good morning Baltimore! AMS 2024

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Isabel Smith – i.h.smith@pgr.reading.ac.uk

Hannah Croad – h.croad@pgr.reading.ac.uk

In January 2024, Isabel Smith and Hannah Croad attended the 104th American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. As fourth-year PhD students this was something of a “last hurrah” of our PhDs (with the remainder of our project monies and carbon budgets being used up), representing a fantastic opportunity to see the latest research happening in meteorology, meet other scientists working in our respective fields, and present our own work to a large audience at this late stage in our projects.

We arrived in Baltimore on the Friday before the conference started, navigating the busy streets near the Inner Harbour in a thick fog to find our hotel. The many plumes of steam coming from vents in the street were somewhat disconcerting, but it turns out this is the result of an underground steam pipe system and is completely safe. As exciting as this was, Baltimore is slightly lacking in terms of other tourist attractions, so on the Saturday we chose to visit Washington DC, only a 1-hour train ride away. We had a great day wandering about the capital city, visiting the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and seeing all the iconic monuments including the Capitol building and the White House. Back in Baltimore on the Sunday, there was a buzz about the city as Baltimore’s NFL Ravens team were hosting the Kansas City Chiefs. Although we did not attend the game, and the Ravens lost, it was a great honour to be within a mile radius of Taylor Swift.

Figure 1: Posing for a selfie in front of the Capitol building in Washington DC whilst the sun made a brief appearance.

The conference started on Sunday, with registration (where we picked up some cool lanyards), speeches from outgoing and incoming AMS presidents, student posters, and an interesting panel discussion about how the two sides of American politics must come together in the fight against climate change. It was also great to meet up with two first-year PhD students from the department, Karan Ruparell and Robby Marks, for who this was the first international conference of their PhD.  

Figure 2: PhD students (from left to right: Karan, Hannah, Robby, Isabel) from the University of Reading at the AMS 2024 annual meeting with the climate-striped-inspired logo.

The main conference programme was scheduled from Monday to Thursday. The size of the conference was overwhelming, with up to 40 parallel sessions at any one time amongst the many different mini- conferences and symposia. Hence, it was important to research which sessions you wanted to go to in advance.  We did this using the AMS app, although it was rather slow and buggy (AMS if you’re reading this, please improve for next year). Isabel attended the 4-day symposium on Aviation, Range and Aerospace meteorology (ARAM), being held in the same room of the conference center each day. In contrast, Hannah attended many different sessions and so was continuously moving between different rooms, with the highlights being the Daniel Keyser symposium on synoptic-dynamic meteorology on Monday and the Polar symposium on Thursday. 

The biggest day of the conference for us was Thursday, as we were both going to be presenting our work. Starting bright and early, Isabel gave an oral presentation in the ARAM symposium, talking about her work on trends in aviation scale turbulence. In the afternoon, Hannah presented a poster in the Polar symposium, talking about her climatology of summer-time Arctic cyclones. We found it interesting to compare the two different presentation formats. For oral presentations your research is likely to reach more people as you have a captive audience for 12 minutes, but the format is more nerve-wracking and there is only limited time for questions and discussion. Less people are likely to visit a poster, but the 1.5 hour format allows for longer and more in-depth discussion with those who do approach you (assuming your poster survives the flight in your suitcase of course). Regardless of the format, we both really enjoyed sharing and discussing our work with other scientists and found the day to be thoroughly rewarding. 

Figure 3: Isabel giving her presentation in the ARAM symposium.
Figure 4: Hannah (left) presenting her poster at the Polar symposium. 

In summary, we both had a fantastic time at the AMS 2024 annual meeting. Not only did we enjoy and learn a lot from the conference talks and posters, it was also great to catch up with current and ex-students from the department, old friends and lecturers from our time at the University of Oklahoma as undergraduate students, and to make new contacts in our respective fields. Although large conferences like AMS can be daunting, attending gives you an appreciation of the wide variety of research happening all over the world, conducive to a stimulating and inspiring atmosphere. They also provide fantastic opportunities to network and to learn new things outside of your immediate research topic. Hence, we would both recommend attending a big conference like AMS if you get the chance to do so in your PhD! 

Scientists Acquitted: Examining the Role of Consent in Climate Activism 

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James Fallon – j.fallon@pgr.reading.ac.uk 

Ecosystem collapse and climate change threaten all of our futures. What power do scientists have to avoid this looming catastrophe? 

Last week, a jury at Southwark Crown Court heard statements from two scientists facing charges of criminal damage. They had taken action by calling on members of the Royal Society and the wider scientific community to engage in civil disobedience and non-violent direct action: to act as if the science is real, demonstrating a response commensurate with the catastrophic effects being predicted. 

Figure 1: In September 2020, Scientist Rebellion co-founders Mike and Tim took non-violent direct action at the UK’s most prominent scientific body, The Royal Society – source scientistrebellion.com

The defence rested on legal “consent”: that those working at the institute would, when confronted with the facts, consent to their actions. Had the Royal Society realised the potential of scientists to drive political change through activism, they would have agreed that the damage to their building was justified in pursuit of averting climate and ecological collapse. Dr. Tim Hewlett, astrophysicist, and Mike Lynch-White, former theoretical physicist, were unanimously acquitted on Friday.

Despite new bills being introduced to criminalise protests [1], and available legal defences being constrained, many court juries are in fact still finding climate activists not guilty for non-violent direct action .

In this blog post, I want to introduce some key ideas which explain the power and impact these types of protest can have when used by climate activists today.

Radical Intervention: What needs to happen?

According to Morrison et al. 2020, “meaningful climate action requires interventions that are preventative, effective, and systemic – interventions that are radical rather than conventional” [2]. The term “radical” can assume different definitions, categorised in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Debates about radical intervention invoke at least six different interpretations of ‘radical’. These different interpretations can be viewed as a typology, with each type reflecting the extent to which the intervention disrupts the status quo to address the root drivers of climate change. – Morrison et al. 2022

Current approaches to address climate change focus on what may be considered category “1” and “2” interventions: avoiding systemic changes and focusing on “techno fixes” and soft economic changes (such as carbon accounting). To businesses and politicians, these approaches are often desirable and successful , because they can be rapidly implemented and offer hope. But many of these approaches can suffer from a lack of follow-up, loopholes, or may even inadvertently generate new environmental or social problems.

More radical intervention is challenging, because root drivers of climate and ecological breakdown are “deeply embedded in existing societal structures, practices and values at multiple scales, and manifest in diverse ways; including as constraints on women’s reproductive rights, through irresponsible practices of technological innovation and overconsumption, and via political obsessions with ‘small’ government”.

What might a “deep” (5 and 6) radical intervention look like? Changing our future course from one of climate collapse, to a resilient world will “require disruption of [overlooked drivers including] capitalism, colonialism and global inequality”. We should be actively questioning whether economic systems reliant on infinite growth are sustainable on a planet of finite resources, and then propose new systems that prioritise wellbeing and sustainable development within our planetary boundaries [3].

Legal Consent in Activism

Actions like throwing soup on Van Goghs, gluing a hand to a window, daubing institutions in paint may all seem disconnected from the issues protestors wish to highlight. But these actions put the focus on the absurdity of a system that has greater contempt for property damage than the knowing and wilful destruction of nature. A system where economic inequality is rising whilst the wealthiest individuals are the leading driver of emissions [4].

As Greta Thunberg says, “Our house is on fire”. Defending non-violent actions at the Royal Society and Shell’s London Offices, Dr. Hewlett used this metaphor in his closing statement:

“If I smashed a window to drag you from a burning building, most would consent to that damage; Shell has set our house on fire, and when people understand the full extent of their crimes they do not generally object to a splash of paint, they object to the crime of arson. And when scientists come to appreciate our potential to raise the fire alarm, they generally do not object to the non-violent means used to bring them to that understanding, in fact they are often grateful for having their eyes opened. In order to find us guilty, you must be sure that we did not honestly believe they might consent. If we did not honestly believe in consent, why would we even try to mobilise our community?”

Figure 3: Dr. Tim Hewlett after being acquitted from the Royal Society Case – source: Scientist Rebellion

Although the argument of “consent” was successfully used to reach an acquittal in the case of the Royal Society, during the same trial and facing the same jury, Tim was found guilty of a similar protest at Shell [5]. The deliberations of a jury are known only to the jury members, so we cannot know for sure why this conclusion was reached. Tim is currently seeking legal advice. Out of 45 pieces of evidence against Shell only 2 were accepted by the judge (the rest were hidden from the jury). Expert witnesses were denied the opportunity to talk about Shell’s human rights abuses and the company’s failure to align with the Paris agreement.

Had Tim been allowed to make arguments relevant to his protest in the Shell case, it is likely that he would have been found innocent in this case as well.

“From Publications to Public Actions”: How do we accelerate systemic changes?

Given the urgency of climate and ecological emergency, Gardner et al. 2021 suggest that universities must “expand their conception of how they contribute to the public good, and explicitly recognise engagement with advocacy as part of the work mandate of their academic staff”, and outline how work models should be adapted to support this [6].

In the most read Social Metwork blog post of 2021 [7], Gabriel Perez wrote about how our own ways of thinking are influenced by external factors, and therefore there is a need for us to be aware of our roles as scientists across all levels of politics and society. By supporting and even taking part in different forms of protest, scientists can make uniquely important contributions.

It is possible to lend additional credibility to the demands of climate activists by supporting and engaging with movements. This can range from simply signing a letter, to joining in with “low-risk” activities such as talking about these movements with friends and colleagues, joining in with marches, or engaging in outreach activities. We can even join in provocative non-violent direct actions which may pose risk to our liberty (although not everyone is as equally comfortable to do this, with potential visa issues, childcare commitment, and financial struggles being some of the barriers activists may face).

Figure 4: Una rebelión necesaria: Aprill 2022, Scientists take non-violent direct action at the Spanish congress asking for recommendations of the scientific community to become legally binding objectives with institutional mechanisms that guarantee the real participation of citizens – source: rebelioncientifica.es

As scientists, we each have a powerful toolkit to use in activism: we are trained in statistics and comprehension of complicated reports; we present our findings to different audiences; we might have experience publishing, maintaining websites, communicating across sectors, teaching. These are all valuable skills for activists to have, and we have many of them at once!

Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But, the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. (António Guterres, UN Secretary-General)

Closing thoughts

Climate and ecological collapse pose existential risks to humanity. If we are to avert the worst effects, and place ourselves in a position best able to support the most impacted, then we need to rethink the purpose of our societies.

Taking non-violent direct action sparks controversy, and is shocking. But as a disruptive tactic, it is successful at initiating debate.

[1] Anita Mureithi 2023 “Scrap plans to give cops more power, say women as David Carrick jailed for life” OpenDemocracy news https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/public-order-bill-metropolitan-police-david-carrick-protest

[2] Morrison, T.H., Adger, W.N., Agrawal, A. et al. Radical interventions for climate-impacted systems. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 1100–1106 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01542-y

[3] Doughnut Economics Action Lab – About https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics

[4] Oxfam “Survival Of The Richest: How We Must Tax The Super-Rich Now To Fight Inequality” 2023 https://www.oxfam.ca/publication/davos-report-2023

[5] Rikki Blue, “Listen to the science. Civil disobedience by 1000 scientists.”, Real Media https://realmedia.press/listen-to-the-science

[6] Gardner, C.J, Thierry, A., Rowlandson, W., Steinberger, J.K. From Publications to Public Actions: The Role of Universities in Facilitating Academic Advocacy and Activism in the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Frontiers in Sustainability. 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2021.679019

[7] Gabriel Perez, Climate Science and Power, The Social Metwork https://socialmetwork.blog/2021/11/05/climate-science-and-power

AGU 2022 in the Windy City

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Lauren James – l.a.james@pgr.reading.ac.uk

AGU Fall Meeting 2022 was held in Chicago, Illinois from 12th – 16th December, and I was fortunate to attend the conference in person to present a poster on my PhD research. At the post-pandemic event, 18,000 attendees were expected to be present throughout the week and more attended online. To date, this was going to be the largest audience to view my research.

No matter how many people tell you how huge the AGU meeting is, it is not until you walk into the venue you understand the extent of this conference. Rows upon rows of poster boards, a sizeable exhibition hall, an AGU centre and relaxation zone, and endless hallways to the seminar rooms. I went by the venue on Sunday afternoon to register and work out the main routes to and around the conference centre. I would recommend this to anyone attending as come Monday morning the registration queue was extraordinarily long, looping across bridges and down staircases. You would have missed any early morning talks you wanted to attend.

Tuesday morning was my allocated time to showcase my work. The poster sessions were 3.5 hours long, but the posters could be kept up on the board for the full day. Whilst there was no requirement to stand next to your poster for the full duration, I did just that as time flew by very quickly. Fellow scientists were eager to discuss the work, learn about new ideas, and find overlaps with their work. I brought along A4 printed versions of the poster (an idea I had picked up from another conference) and it was beneficial to either let attendees take away your work for reference or for allowing people at the back of a crowd to read the poster. For the online attendees, presenters could make an interactive poster (a.k.a iPosters) which was published on the online gallery. This platform allowed videos, gifs, and audio clips as well as no-limit to text in expandable text boxes. Whilst still being mindful of not overcrowding a poster, these additional features made the poster more accessible. For some fortunate presenters, digital poster rows at the conference allowed their iPosters to be viewable in person too. Thus, presenters could use the movies and audio to support their work as well as attendees could easily interact with their displays whilst unmanned. Further, there was no organisation for printing and travelling with a poster and produced no waste. Could this be the future of poster sessions?

Figure 1: An overlooking view of a section of the poster hall on the final day of the conference. The digital poster row can be seen on the closest row.
Figure 2: A picture of myself in front of my poster.

There were so many oral presentations throughout the week that are suitable for your field of research. With the help of the AGU app, I was able to make a schedule for the space physics sessions I wanted to attend and optimise my time at the conference by finding other sessions I would find interesting. This year, for the first time, there was a session on ‘Raising Awareness on Mental Health in the Earth and Space Sciences’. In the last few years, such sessions have become more widely available and I am happy to see that AGU has also taken the opportunity to discuss the importance of healthy work. Of the oral presentation sessions I attended, this one instigated a very engaged audience and highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary discussions. All the oral presentation sessions catered for in-person and online audiences, and have continued to allow online speakers to present and participate in the Q&A. These sessions are also still available to re-watch for all the attendees for a few weeks.

A walk amongst the exhibition hall filled some of the free time between sessions and allowed attendees to discuss careers with academic institutes and businesses working with instrumentation, programming, data accessibility, fieldwork and more. As a postgraduate student in space physics, it was initially overwhelming to see many stands that were advertising topics alien to me. But before you knew it, I had heard about a new state-of-the-art instrument that will rapidly transmit terabytes of data; learnt about ground aquifers by making an Oreo Ice Cream float; and collected a renowned NASA 2023 calendar.

From my understanding, there have been a few changes to the AGU meeting since pre-pandemic times. The colours of your lanyard corresponded to your comfort level of COVID-19 safety, spanning from ‘I need distance’ to ‘Air high fives approved’. Alcoholic refreshments during poster sessions were not provided as a conscious decision to improve attendee well-being and ensure the code of conduct is upheld. And the host city of the meeting will change annually within the US to improve the accessibility of the conference (although for a UK attendee, a long-haul flight is unavoidable regardless of this).

Figure 3: A few memories from my visit to Chicago, including the Oreo ice cream float, the cloud gate (a.k.a., The Bean), and the NHL Ice Hockey game at the Union Center.

Chicago was a lovely city to host this year. The conference centre was easily accessible by train and bus from the downtown area, and even walkable on a good weather day. We were fortunate to have rather pleasant weather throughout the visit, although some rain, snow, and a bitterly cold wind were experienced. Exploring the city was extra special this close to Christmas and aided the glory of city lights after sunset. In the evenings, there was ample time and things to do with early career scientists I’ve met throughout my time as a PhD student and newly made contacts from the US. Watching an NHL ice hockey match, visiting Navy Pier, a competitive evening at the bowling alley, and trying the famous deep dish pizza were just some of the things squeezed into the busy week.

There is no doubt that attending the AGU Fall Meeting has been a highlight in my PhD experience, and one that I would recommend to anyone who has the opportunity to visit in the future. Even if you’re travelling alone, which I did, there were ample opportunities to meet fellow attendees and experience a very enjoyable week in the city. I thank the University of Reading Graduate School for giving me a student travel bursary to help fund this international trip. Next year, this conference is being held in San Francisco, California from the 11th – 15th of December 2023.

Science Stand-up: Putting those Met Panto Skills to Good Use 

James FallonLeave a comment

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

A stage and red curtain

I’ve been keen to ‘do my bit’ for climate science communication for a while now. While I do like attending a good public lecture or seminar, I wanted to try something a bit different, particularly something I could bring my love of comedy into. So, when a science stand-up comedy event was pointed out to me (thanks to Tara Bryer of Climate Outreach!) I thought I’d give it a go. 

The event in question is ‘Science Showoff’, an event designed to communicate science via comedy. It’s held on the last Wednesday every month in London, currently held at The Harrison near Kings Cross station, and has been running for over 10 years. And it’s open to absolutely anyone to perform – no comedic credentials required. The only rules are it’s 9-minute sets, must be about something STEM related, and should (hopefully) be funny!  

I performed in the August event and decided to base my set broadly on my research field of modelling the effects of aerosols on climate. Basing the set on my research made it slightly easier as I knew the science content already and just needed to write the comedy – though one can definitely go for more adventurous topics. While to a non-scientist that might sound a bit dry, it’s actually not too difficult to come up with jokes about climate science – as anyone who’s helped write a Met Panto script will surely know.  

For example, framing it as an explanation of my hatred of something as innocuous as deodorant (which as it turns out, makes a decent low-effort physical demonstration of aerosols) seemed a good way to make content easier to understand and line up some more relatable jokes. Having a physical prop, even as simple as a deodorant can, also turned out to be an easy way to ‘wow’ the audience (they set a very low bar indeed for being impressed by my ‘live science’). There’s also a wealth of jokes from being a climate ‘modeller’ – you’ve just got to work it 😉 

On the day, while I was very nervous before the event and into the first minute or two of my set, after that it was great fun. The audience, of about 30 people, were incredibly friendly and the host, Steve, was very supportive. After all, while you’re there for comedy, there’s not much pressure as many of the acts (myself included) have never performed stand-up comedy before. The set mostly went to plan, though I did add a little improvisation in response to audience reactions when they liked a joke more than I’d expected, and when audience members were reluctant to participate – who’d have thought leading one of them into a joke at their expense would make the others so reluctant? It was also a lot of fun going from being an audience member worried about being picked on, to the one who gets to pick on people – the audience engagement was definitely the most enjoyable part.  

It was also huge fun just writing the set. I didn’t set myself loads of pressure, just occasionally thinking of jokes while walking or on the train and making a note of it, and then put it all together the weekend before and rehearsed the evening before. Again, if you’re ever helped write the Panto script or Sappo email, you’ll know how much fun this all can be (although I’m now regretting not getting pizza in while I wrote it).  

And as a bonus, I got to listen to the other five acts perform, sometimes riffing off my jokes too! We had everything from penguins in the Antarctic to the most embarrassing lab accidents you could imagine. The acts were by people from a range of scientific disciplines and backgrounds including PhD students, a lecturer, and a professional science communicator. 

I can’t say much more to describe the experience itself, but if you want an idea of what it’s like, you can check out some recorded previous sets (while there is some rather questionable footage of my own act, there is not a chance I’m sharing it here – I’m not that confident :P). Or of course, go attend the next Science Showoff or a similar science comedy event. 

What I would say though is if you also want to do climate science communication (or try a different format for it) and are a fan of comedy – (looking at any and all Met Panto-ers especially here) – then you should consider giving this a go! Yes, even if you’ve never done stand-up comedy before… I mean it can’t be more embarrassing than acting out a lecturer in Panto while they watch! 

Any questions about the experience or want to be persuaded to give it a try??? Feel free to comment or email me 🙂 

COP Climate Action Studio 2021 and a visit to the Green Zone, Glasgow  

Helen HookerLeave a comment

Helen Hooker h.hooker@pgr.reading.ac.uk 

Introduction 

SCENARIO DTP and the Walker Academy offered PhD students the opportunity to take part in the annual COP Climate Action Studio (COPCAS) 2021. COPCAS began with workshops on the background of COP, communication and interviewing skills and an understanding of the COP26 themes and the (massive!) schedule. James Fallon and Kerry Smith were ‘on the ground’ in the Blue Zone, Glasgow in week 1 of COP26, followed by Gwyn Matthews and Jo Herschan during week 2. Interviews were arranged between COP26 observers, and COPCAS participants back in Reading who were following COP26 events in small groups through livestream. Students summarised the varied and interesting findings by writing blog posts and engaging with social media.

Figure 1: COPCAS in action.   

Motivation, training and week 1 

Personally, I wanted to learn more about the COP process and to understand climate policy implementation and action (or lack thereof). I was also interested to learn more about anticipatory action and forecast based financing, which relate to my research. After spending 18 months working remotely in my kitchen, I wanted to meet other students and improve formulating and asking questions! I found the initial training reassuring in many ways, especially finding out that so many people have dedicated themselves to drive change and find solutions. During the first week of COP26 we heard about so many positive efforts to combat the climate crisis from personal actions to community schemes, and even country wide ambitious projects such as reforestation in Costa Rica. A momentum seemed to be building with pledges to stop deforestation and to reduce methane emissions.

Green Zone visit 

Figure 2: Green Zone visit included a weekend full of exhibitors, talks, films and panel discussions plus a giant inflatable extracting CO2 via bouncing!

During the middle weekend of COP26, some of us visited the Green Zone in Glasgow. This was a mini version of the Blue Zone open to the public and offered a wide variety of talks and panel discussions. Stand out moments for me: a photograph of indigenous children wearing bamboo raincoats, measuring the length of Judy Dench’s tree, the emotive youth speakers from Act4Food Act4Change and the climate research documentary Arctic Drift where hundreds of scientists onboard a ship carried out research whilst locked into the polar winter ice-flow.  

COPCAS Blog 

During COPCAS I wrote blogs about: a Green Zone event from Space4climate, an interview by Kerry Smith with SEAChange (a community-based project in Aberdeenshire aiming to decarbonise old stone buildings) and Sports for climate action. I also carried out an interview arranged by Jo with WWF on a food systems approach to tackling climate change.

Ultimately though, the elephant in the large COP26 Blue Zone room had been there all along…

Interview with Anne Olhoff, Emissions Gap Report (EGR) 2021 Chief scientific editor and Head of Strategy, Climate Planning and Policy, UNEP DTU Partnership.

Figure 3: Source: UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2021 updated midway through week two of COP26 accounting for new pledges. 

Time is running out, midway through the second week of COP26, the United Nations Environmental Partnership (UNEP) presented its assessment on the change to global temperature projections based on the updated pledges so far agreed in Glasgow.  

Pledges made prior to COP26 via Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) put the world on track to reach a temperature increase of 2.7C by the end of the century. To keep the Paris Agreement of keeping warming below 1.5C this century, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 55% in the next eight years. At this point in COP26, updated pledges now account for just an 8% reduction – this is 7 times too small to keep to 1.5C and 4 times too small to keep to 2C. Updated projections based on COP26 so far now estimate a temperature rise of 2.4C by 2100. Net-zero pledges could reduce this by a further 0.5C, however plans are sketchy and not included in NDCs. So far just five of the G20 countries are on a pathway to net-zero.

Anne’s response regarding policy implementation in law: 

“Countries pledge targets for example for 2030 under the UN framework for climate change and there’s no international law to enforce them, at least not yet. Some countries have put net-zero policies into law, which has a much bigger impact as the government can be held accountable for the implementation of their pledges.” 

Following my own shock at the size of the emissions gap, I asked Anne if she feels there has been any positive changes in recent years: 

“I do think we have seen a lot of change, actually…the thing is, things are not moving as fast as they should. We have seen change in terms of the commitment of countries and the policy development and development in new technology needed to achieve the goals, these are all positive developments and here now, changing the whole narrative, just 2 years ago no one would have thought we’d have 70 countries setting net-zero emission targets…we are also seeing greater divergence between countries, between those making the effort to assist the green transition such as the UK, EU and others, and those further behind the curve such as China, Brazil and India. It’s important to help these countries transition very soon, peaking emissions and rapidly declining after that.”   

I asked Anne how countries on track can support others: 

“A lot of the great things here (at COP) is to strengthen that international collaboration and sharing of experiences, it’s an important function of the COP meeting, but we need to have the political will and leadership in the countries to drive this forward.” 

Summary 

The momentum that was apparent during the first week of COP26 seemed to have stalled with this update. Despite the monumental effort of so many scientists, NGOs, individuals and those seeking solutions from every conceivable angle, the pledges made on fossil fuel reduction are still so far from what is needed. And at the final hour (plus a day), the ambition to ‘phaseout’ burning coal was changed to ‘phasedown’ and the financial contributions from developed nations pledged to cover loss and damage to countries not responsible for, but impacted now by climate change, have not been realised. I think this is the first time I have really felt the true meaning of ‘climate justice’. Perhaps we do need a planet law, as it seems our political leaders, do not have the will.

Overall, the COPCAS experience has been enjoyable, slightly overwhelming and emotional! It has been great to work together and to share the experiences of those in the Blue zone. It was also an amazing learning experience; I think I have barely touched the surface of the entire COP process and I would still like to understand more.

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.