students

Good morning Baltimore! AMS 2024

The Social MetworkLeave a comment

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! 

sshRACC: The Making Of

The Social MetworkLeave a comment

Once upon a time, in the first week of term, last year’s panto organisers Jen Stout and Caleb Miller came to HP180 to ask if we (Catherine Toolan, Rosie Mammatt, and Hette Houtman) wanted to organise this year’s panto. Duty called, and we answered. We swiftly set out to start the preparations for this prestigious event.  

We set week 3 as the deadline to decide what story we would parody (2 weeks behind schedule). Luckily, some brainstorming on the (slightly hungover) morning after last year’s panto afterparty had already produced a strong candidate: Shrek. We agreed that the plot would be hard to adapt, but the potential for great songs would more than make up for it. During a general assembly of PhD students, it was decided almost unanimously that Shrek was the best we could come up with (sorry Rhiannon, maybe you can do Stratatouille next year). And so it was that Thorwald Stein came to be portrayed as an ogre. 

Plot

By week 8 (5 weeks behind schedule) the plot was finally ironed out. 

Thorwald Stein, a happy and eco-friendly researcher, is having a meeting with PhD student DonkeyBrian Lo, when a horde of fairytale characters barge into his swam-, err office. They bring the news that head of department, Lord Charquaad-Perez, has turned off the heating in most of the building to cut down on carbon emissions! When Thorwald demands an end to this nonsense, Lord Charquaad-Perez tells Thorwald he can have the heating back on if he brings down the dreaded FAAM-dragon, which is breathing out loads of carbon and taking up most of their carbon budget.  

Thus, Thorwald and his trusty companion DonkeyBrian set out on this quest to bring back peace to the department. They are joined by Lord Charquaad’s minion, Chris in Westboots, who keeps an eye on things for his master. When they finally reach the far, far away land of Wessex and spot the FAAM-dragon, they discover that world-renowned climate scientist FionEd Hawkins is trapped on it! As is panto tradition, Maarten Ambaum (portrayed as Prince Charming) tells our heroes that his textbook on thermal physics contains the secrets they need to bring down the plane. But alas, all its copies have been stolen from the library! Luckily, in an ode to the retiring SCENARIO DTP coordinator Wendy Neale and her seemingly magical powers in keeping this department running, Fairy Wendymother comes to the rescue. She waves her magic wand and down comes the dreaded FAAM-dragon. 

After a long journey (made even longer because their newly set travel carbon budget ran out on the way back), the crew return to the department. Thorwald and FionEd set out to cut down the department’s carbon emissions even further, but are thwarted by Lord Charquaad-Perez, who promises FionEd 3TB of storage on the sshRACC if she works on a paper with him instead of attempting to reduce the department’s carbon emissions. 

A fight ensues, and in the chaos Lord Charquaad-Perez is taken prisoner by the FAAM dragon. Thorwald and FionEd sneak into Lord Charquaad’s office and discover that it wasn’t FAAM but he himself who had been using up 80% of the budget – on Virgin Galactic tourist flights to the stratosphere! “That man must really love the stratosphere”, FionEd rightly says. 

With Lord Charquaad’s silly emissions no longer an issue, and the implementation of some ingenious emission-reducing measures from FionEd and Thorwald (like reusable coffee cups), the department becomes truly green, and can finally live la vida eco.  

Songs 

“Live la vida eco? What’s that?”, we hear you ask. Livin’ la vida eco was an adaptation of the absolute banger of a song by Ricky Martin, on which we ended the panto. And it wasn’t the only bop to be played by the band that night: All-Star by Smash Mouth (‘Ed Hawkins once told me the world is gonna warm up’), Funkytown by Lipps Inc. (‘Won’t you get me some heating now?’), Holding out for a hero by Bonnie Tyler (‘I need you Wendy’), I’m a believer by Smash Mouth (‘Donkey made me change, now I’m a lot cleaner’), and finally Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne (‘Working on papers she’s all alone’ – we will admit this one didn’t make a lot of sense, but we just wanted to play the song). All killer, no filler. 

Once again, Flynn Ames and his protege Nathaniel Edward-Inatimi did a superb job of organising the band. Their incredible talent and months of practise meant that by the time the song rehearsals came around (just two weeks before the show), they sounded amazing. The singers, however, did not. But after a few rehearsals, we’d come out of our shells and were able to put out a (hopefully) respectable performance!  

A special thanks must also go to Beth Saunders for her many years of panto knowledge, insane drumming skills and helping us get back into the swing of live pantos after the covid years. You’ll be missed next year! 

Casting  

The job of casting the roles this year seemed to be too easy. First year Robby Marks’ fatal “I don’t mind” remark led to him becoming the title character. Similar mistakes from Niamh O’Callaghan, who u-turned from “absolutely not” to “oh go on then” in a matter of seconds, led to her becoming the esteemed climate scientist FionEd Hawkins.  

As many of the other parts had relatively few lines, it was great to have so many students wanting to get involved. This led to a great atmosphere both on and off stage – we’re hoping this enthusiasm is still there when we start looking for next year’s organisers… 

The Night of the Panto  

Tickets had been sold (about 150 of them!). Props had been made, songs had been practised. The backstage cupboard was full, Robby’s face had been painted green. The cast were assembled and waiting at 5pm sharp. But wait – who was this in the Madejski lecture theatre? Surprise! An unexpected law lecture until 6pm!  

With the doors due to open at 7pm, we were feeling the pressure. Thankfully, due to a fair amount of preparation earlier in the day between lectures, many of the time- consuming tasks like setting the band up had already been done. With all hands- on deck and some tactical delaying of the audience (by keeping them by the buffet for longer) we were ready to go by 7.15.  

The first act was underway and the performance was going well. Nobody had forgotten their lines (yet). At the end of the first act, a quick glance at the watch relieved that we’d whistled through it in under half an hour… eek! 

Fortunately, we had three fantastic interval acts to keep us entertained in the break. Blair McGinness revealed the results of the Big Biscuit Bracket 2023 – why did more than half of you vote for bourbons over chocolate leibniz? Next came the latest episode of Jon Shonk’s much-anticipated Mr Mets series, which was as fantastic as ever. And finally, Chris Scott serenaded us with a handwritten ditty about the fake panto poster on the second floor window, supported by his dancer/backing singer(?) Matt Owens. 

It was time for the second act to get underway. The end of many months of (behind schedule and therefore slightly panicked) writing and rehearsing was in sight, and the performance was wrapped up with a rousing version of Ricky Martin’s famous Livin’ la Vida Eco. Applause was demanded by our cupboard signs, the audience delivered! 

Afterwards, it was time for the swiftest take down you’ve ever seen and a night on the tiles, I mean in the coffee room, with DJ Shonk! 

Some of the phenomenal cast and crew that brought sshRACC to the stage

Reflections  

After lots of hard work, many to-do lists, and more than a few days of PhD research missed, it was very rewarding to see everyone’s efforts come together on the night and to contribute to a long-standing department tradition. Once again, we were reminded that our department is full of people with talents that lie well outside of the field meteorology! We are also proud to say that we delivered (probably) the cheapest evening out in Reading – we believe the panto has remained at the same bargain price of £5 per adult since its beginning in 1992… 

Did we enjoy the experience? Yes, we did. Do we want jobs as directors or producers on the West End? No thank you! 

We would like to thank everyone who attended, contributed to, performed in or supported the panto in any way, shape or form. There are too many of you to list here, so just know that your efforts are appreciated! 

Describe your research using the ten-hundred most common words…

Rebecca Couchman-Crook1 Comment

Online comic “xkcd” set a trend for explaining complicated things using only the 1000 most common words when they created this schematic of Saturn-V.  They have subsequently published more on how microwaves, plate tectonics and your computer work, using the same style.

tornado safety
Useful safety advice from xkcd

So we thought we’d jump on the bandwagon in a recent PhD group meeting, and have a go at explaining our research topics using the ten-hundred most common words. You can have a go yourselves, and tweet us with it @SocialMetwork on Twitter. Enjoy!

The Role of the Asian Summer Monsoon in European Summer Climate Variability – Jonathan Beverley

I look at how heavy rain in in-dear in summer makes rain, sun, wind and other things happen in your-up. This happens by big waves high up in the sky moving around the world. We might be able to use this to make a long know-before better and to help people live longer and not lose money.

Contribution of near-infrared bands of greenhouse gases to radiative forcing – Rachael Byrom

I study how the sun’s light warms the sky. This happens when these really tiny things in the air that we can’t see eat the sun’s light which then makes the sky warmer. I use computers to look into how this happens, especially how exactly the really tiny things eat the sun’s light and how this leads to warming. By this I mean, if I add lots of the tiny things to a pretend computer sky, all over the world, then will the sky also warm over all of the world too and by how much will it warm? This might be interesting for people who lead the world so that they can see how much of the really tiny things we should be allowed to put into the sky.

Wind profile effects on gravity wave drag and their impact on the global atmospheric circulation – Holly Turner

I look at waves in the air over high places and how they slow down the wind. When the wind gets faster the higher up you go, it changes how it slows down. I want to use this to make computer wind pictures better.

The pulsatory nature of Bagana volcano, Papua New Guinea – Rebecca Couchman-Crook

To be a doctor, I look at a fire-breathing ground thing with smoke and rocks on a hot place surrounded by water. I look at space pictures to understand the relationships between the air that smells and fire-rock bits in the air, and other stuff. It’s a very angry fire-breathing ground thing and might kill the near-by humans

Surface fluxes, temperatures and boundary layer evolutions in the building grey zone in London – Beth Saunders

I work on numbers which come out of the Met Office’s computer world. These numbers are different to what is seen and felt in real life for cities. True numbers, seen in real life, help to say how hot cities are, and how different the hot city is to areas that aren’t cities, with trees and fields, because of the city’s people, cars and houses. Numbers saying how fast the wind goes, and the wind’s direction, change in cities because of all the areas with tall houses. Finding times where the computer world numbers are bad for cities will help to make the Met Office’s computer give numbers more like the true numbers.

Cloud electrification and lightning in the evolution of convective storms – Ben Courtier

To be a doctor, I look at sudden light shocks from angry water air that happens with noise in the sky and how the angry water air changes before the light shock happens. I do this in order to better guess when the sudden light shock happens.

 

4th ICOS Summer School

Renato Braghiere2 Comments

Email: R.Braghiere@pgr.reading.ac.uk

The 4th ICOS Summer School on challenges in greenhouse gases measurements and modelling was held at Hyytiälä field station in Finland from 24th May to 2nd June, 2017. It was an amazing week of ecosystem fluxes and measurements, atmospheric composition with in situ and remote sensing measurements, global climate modelling and carbon cycle, atmospheric transport and chemistry, and data management and cloud (‘big data’) methods. We also spent some time in the extremely hot Finnish sauna followed by jumps into a very cold lake, and many highly enjoyable evenings by the fire with sunsets that seemed to never come.

sunset_Martijn Pallandt
Figure 1. Sunset in Hyytiälä, Finland at 22:49 local time. Credits: Martijn Pallandt

Our journey started in Helsinki, where a group of about 35 PhD students, with a number of postdocs and master students took a 3 hours coach trip to Hyytiälä.  The group was very diverse and international with people from different backgrounds; from plant physiologists to meteorologists. The school started with Prof. Dr. Martin Heimann  introducing us to the climate system and the global carbon cycle, and Dr. Alex Vermeulen highlighted the importance of good metadata practices and showed us more about ICOS research infrastructure. Dr. Christoph Gerbig joined us via Skype from Germany and talked about how atmospheric measurements methods with aircrafts (including how private air companies) can help scientists.

Hyytiala_main_tower_truls_Andersen_2
Figure 2. Hyytiälä flux tower site, Finland. Credits: Truls Andersen

On Saturday we visited the Hyytiälä flux tower site, as well as a peatland field station nearby, where we learned more about all the flux data they collect and the importance of peatlands globally. Peatlands store significant amounts of carbon that have been accumulating for millennia and they might have a strong response to climate change in the future. On Sunday, we were divided in two groups to collect data on temperature gradients from the lake to the Hyytiälä main flux tower, as well as on carbon fluxes with dark (respiration only) and transparent (photosynthesis + respiration) CO2 chambers.

chamber_measurements_renato
Figure 3: Dark chamber for CO2 measurements being used by a group of students in the Boreal forest. Credits: Renato Braghiere

On the following day it was time to play with some atmospheric modelling with Dr. Maarten Krol and Dr. Wouter Peters. We prepared presentations with our observation and modelling results and shared our findings and experiences with the new data sets.

The last two days have focused on learning how to measure ecosystem fluxes with Prof. Dr. Timo Vesala, and insights on COS measurements and applications with Dr. Kadmiel Maseyk. Timo also shared with us his passion for cinema with a brilliant talk entitled “From Vertigo to Blue Velvet: Connotations between Movies and Climate change” and we watched a really nice Finnish movie “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki“.

4th_icos_summer_school_group_photo
Figure 4: 4th ICOS Summer School on Challenges in greenhouse gases measurements and modelling group photo. Credits: Wouter Peters

Lastly, it was a fantastic week where we were introduced to several topics and methods related to the global carbon budget and how it might impact the future climate. No doubt all information gained in this Summer School will be highly valuable for our careers and how we do science. A massive ‘cheers’ to Olli Peltola, Alex Vermeulen, Martin Heimann, Christoph Gerbig, Greet Maenhout, Wouter Peters, Maarten Krol, Anders Lindroth , Kadmiel Maseyk, Timo Vesala, and all the staff at the Hyytiälä field station.

This post only scratches the surface of all of the incredible material we were able to cover in the 4th ICOS Summer School, not to mention the amazing group of scientists that we met in Finland, who I really look forward to keeping in touch over the course of the years!

 

Managing your supervisor

Hannah Gough1 Comment

Written by: h.l.gough@pgr.reading.ac.uk

You’re going to be working with them for a while. Supervisors, like projects, are all unique and have their own ways of working. Lots of us have banded together to give tips and advice on how to ‘manage your supervisor’ and by that we mean make the road towards a PhD a little bit easier.

For those of you looking to start a PhD, getting the right match between you and a supervisor is key. PhDs are already stressful enough without a strained supervisor-student relationship.

Know how they work

Supervisors all work differently. Some will leave you to wander for a bit before drawing you back to the point, and others will provide a map of where you’re going. There’s no right or wrong but sometimes their methods can get frustrating when you start comparing supervisors.

Find out the best way to contact them. Some never reply to email and others are never in the office or dislike being disturbed. Figure out between you and your supervisor the best way of getting in contact.

Personal and work balance

Some supervisors are happy to talk about personal problems. Others aren’t. Again, neither option is right or wrong, but it’s something you have to be aware of.

Ask for things

A PhD is intended as a personal development training programme and not just for writing a thesis and publishing papers. Don’t be afraid to ask to do something different, such as environment-Yes, internships, field work and summer schools to name a few.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Manage expectations

Saying yes to all the work they give you is only going to lead to disappointment for them and you. Be honest with the amount of work you can do, and say when you’re having a bad week. They’ll understand. Say when you’ve got enough on your plate already.

Know how long they take to read things, otherwise you’ll end up disappointed when the feedback you expected on a certain day doesn’t arrive.

Don’t expect them to be on email 24/7. Likewise, let them know that you’re not going to be checking emails at 3am either.

Know their style and expertise

Some come across more critical than others, some highlight the good as well as the bad. Their subject may make them biased on certain topics. Knowing their expertise allows you to tailor questions for them.

This is a lot more relevant to people with multiple supervisors, as often you can get two conflicting opinions and have no idea which one to accept. This happens, and it does teach you some diplomacy skills, but don’t go picking sides.

Get advice from other students

Chances are, other students will be supervised by your supervisor. Ask them for hints and tips of how they work. Ask about pitfalls to avoid and helpful tips. They might even have a manual on how to deal with them! There is a camaraderie between people who share the same supervisor!

If you’re still stuck and doing a PhD at Reading University, there’s an RRDP course by the graduate school called managing your supervisor. Definitely worth going to.