A public lecture at Bangor University presented
by Professor Geraint Vaughan in the Main Arts Lecture Theatre on Monday 24th
June 2013, at 6.30pm.
Professor Geraint Vaughan will be giving his
re-scheduled public lecture for the Science Festival Week. The
event is sponsored by the Royal Meteorological Society and the Climate Change
Consortium of Wales. Entry is free of
charge, includes a wine reception and is open to all members of the general
public.
2012 began with predictions of drought and
with hose pipe bans beginning as early
as March in some parts of the UK. The 3-month outlook released by the Met Office UK
originally forecast: “…average UK
rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June as a whole, and also slightly
favours April being the driest of the 3
months. With this forecast, the water resources situation in southern, eastern and central
England is likely to deteriorate further
during the April-May-June period”. However, April and June ended up being the wettest months
recorded, since records began in 1910.
Clearly, predicting month to month variations
in rainfall at long-lead times remains
very difficult. There are a number of factors influencing the climate system and our
weather. Sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean can act as a mirror reflecting
heat back into the atmosphere but as it melts, the dark ocean becomes a heat
sink for the sun’s rays, warming the earth’s surface. The position of the
jetstream – the atmospheric circulation
that drives our prevailing west to east flow of weather systems - appears to have been
a major contributing factor behind the
high rainfall last year. Evidence suggests that during March and April there
appeared to be a ‘blocking pattern’ in the jetstream’s path – causing its
deviation to the north and south of its
usual eastward progress.
What is the science behind the extensive high
rainfall and extreme flooding events
during 2012? Come and find out from one of the world’s leading experts - Professor Geraint Vaughan.
Professor Vaughan is a native of north
Wales and Welsh language speaker. He gained his BA from Cambridge University
and DPhil from Oxford University. Geraint started his research career in the Meteorological
Office, initially on rocket-borne
measurements of mesospheric ozone, then on airborne measurements of stratosphere-troposphere
exchange. In 1984 he joined the Physics
department at the University of Wales Aberystwyth, moving to University of Manchester as Professor of
Atmospheric Science in January 2005.
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