The recent air pollution episode in the UK brought a previously obscure air quality metric into the public consciousness, with the Daily Air Quality Index (DAQI) appearing in weather forecasts and the media. The index describes the severity of pollution in different areas using a ten-point scale, with a score of ten being the worst score. …[Read More]
UK Air Pollution: March/April 2014
Air pollution over the UK has been high on the agenda today with the media covering the widespread build up of aerosol pollution since the end of last week. This has led to health concerns, particularly for vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly and people with pre-existing heart and lung conditions. This follows the …[Read More]
UK Air Pollution: March 2014
After the UK’s wettest winter since 1910, spring has sprung with several warm and clear days in March so far. High pressure has been the dominant meteorological situation, which has seen clear skies during the day and cold nights, with fog settling overnight and continuing into the morning. While the high pressure and much reduced …[Read More]
Fire in Salford
My commute to work yesterday morning took an unexpected turn as my train pulled into my usual stop in Salford, Greater Manchester. To my right was a huge plume of smoke, which I would usually associate more with deforestation fires in Brazil! A plume of black smoke was rising up against the backdrop of beautifully …[Read More]
Aerosols and the pause
There is a new commentary piece in Nature Geoscience by Gavin Schmidt and colleagues on ‘Reconciling warming trends’. The paper investigates several potential causes for the discrepancy between climate model projections and the recent ‘slowdown’ in global surface temperatures, which is nicely illustrated on Ed Hawkins’ Climate Lab Book blog. One of the aspects the paper looks at is the influence of aerosol particles …[Read More]
Fires in South East Asia
Smoke from a number of agricultural fires is currently blanketing Thailand and Cambodia. This is shown below in the satellite image from the MODIS instrument on the TERRA satellite. The red dots are classed as ‘thermal anomalies’ by the satellite instrument and are usually indicative of fires burning in these locations. The majority of the …[Read More]
What did the IPCC say about aerosols?
Aerosols dominate the uncertainty in the total anthropogenic radiative forcing. A complete understanding of past and future climate change requires a thorough assessment of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions. This is one of the conclusions about aerosols and their impact on our climate from the the final report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the …[Read More]
AGU 2013 roundup
Now that the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting has ended, I thought I would roundup what I’ve been involved with over the week for both this blog and the Barometer Podcast, which I was recording each day with Sam Illingworth. Links to each piece are available below. Many thanks to all who have read and shared these …[Read More]
AGU 2013 Days 4 & 5: measurements & models
My fourth and fifth days at the AGU Fall Meeting involved dashing between multiple sessions to take in a number of talks on (surprise, surprise) aerosols! The main strand running through them from my point of view was how there are major efforts to construct large datasets of aerosol properties that can be used to …[Read More]
AGU 2013 Day 3: secondary organic aerosol – animal or vegetable?
My third day at the AGU 2013 Fall Meeting involved lots of talks on one of the trickiest parts of aerosol science – secondary organic aerosol (SOA). We’ve known for several years now that SOA is ubiquitous across the globe and it is often the most dominant aerosol chemical species in many environments and this …[Read More]