Hull University Science Festival 2014

by Chris Skinner (@cloudskinner)

One of the great joys of academic life is getting the opportunity to communicate our research to the public - it is one of the key motivators of this blog after all. We spend much of our time in a bubble and become accustomed to our jargon and way of life which seems a bit alien to those outside the bubble, so it is also very healthy for us to step out once in a while and engage with those out there. The challenge is finding ways to communicate our research in ways that are informative and engaging.

This year, the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Hull organised the Hull Science Festival. Running as part of National Science Week (which one attending school pupil pointed out to me was 9 days, and not actually a week), it saw students and staff from the university present their research to members of the public.

The Science Festival ran on a Friday and Saturday. Friday was an early start as the Hull Bondholders ("The Bondholder Scheme is an almost 200-strong powerful network of businesses, who work together to raise the profile of the Humber") held their regular breakfast meeting at the University as part of the Festival, which allowed us to explain the benefits of our research to business in the area. After the breakfast (after we had mopped up the leftover sausages - all the bacon had gone), the audience changed to school pupils and their teachers, as local schools were invited to attend.

Throughout the day the marquee containing the exhibitions was open for the pupils to mill around and chat to us, whilst the schools took it in turns to attend the presentations and demonstrations conducted elsewhere on campus. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to see any of these. The pupils all seemed very excited and keen to know more about the displays on offer, and I also got the chance to chat to the teachers from my old school, Baysgarth, who had brought some pupils along.

The Saturday was open to the public to just come and go as they pleased and wander, and hopefully wonder, around. This was a busy day where I spent almost all of it talking to people about my research and the Humber. It coincided with an Open Day too, so prospective students got a further opportunity to see just what an active and exciting university we are.  All in all, it was a great couple of days and I hope it becomes a regular fixture in our calendar.

Unfortunately for me and my chances of looking around, both days were very busy and I spent much of it manning my stall, demonstrating the Dynamic Humber Project's work on understanding the 5th December storm surge, but I did get to see some of the neighbouring displays.

GEES were out in force for the Festival, as shown below - 

The view over the GEES displays

I've got a bone to pick with you! (Photo by Dr Jane Bunting) 

Dr Malcolm Lillie brought along skeletons and bones from his archaeology collection, including some pieces which were over 7,000 years old.

You say stomata... (photo by Dr Jane Bunting)

Dr Jane Bunting set up a microscope and gave people the opportunity to take peelings from a holly leaf. Observing these peelings under the microscope revealed the leaf's stomata (mouth-like pores that exchange gases and moisture between the the air and the plant) - this was to highlight the research into how leaf structure can change in response to weather and climate.

GEES PhD Student, Ross Jenning's, demonstrating how to harness tidal power for electricity (photo by @HullOpenDays)

Prof Jack Hardisty brought along a prototype of a tidal generator which was used to demonstrate the potential of harnessing the abundance of tidal energy in the Humber to generate electricity.

Here, Dr David Milan demonstrates how changes to the land surface can influence run-off. Whilst the water on the hard surface drains the tank very quickly, the natural surface absorbs the water, holding it for longer and reduces the levels of flow - this can help reduce the impacts of flooding.

In addition to the displays above, we also had posters from other members of the Department, including showing off research in Human Geography by Prof David Gibbs and Dr Kirstie O'Neill, who showcased their research on green entrepreneurs  and the role they play in making building more sustainable. Dr Deborah Butler was often seen wielding an iPad ready to demonstrate the FoodCrowd app she blogged about last week.

We weren't the only ones at the Festival, not by a long shot, and below are some the highlights around the marquee - 

Beequiet and Beehave

Dr Darren Evans from the University's School of Biological Sciences brought along some bees in a commercial hive. Although largely confined to a netted cage, one plucky bee escaped and enjoyed a ride on the tidal generator. 

Biodiversity Jenga and Coffee! (photo by Darren Evans)

Dr Evans also brought along his giant Biodiversity Jenga set, which demonstrates how the successive removal of species from a system can lead to environmental collapse.

My favourite part of, my limited view of, the Festival was the 3D printer brought along by Computer Science. I love these things and have been following their development for years, but this was the first time I had seen one for real, and it was working! The potential for these things is enormous, and I'm not just saying that as a secret collector of toy soldiers. Computer Science also brought along a few robots and their Oculus Rift (virtual reality equipment, recently purchased by Facebook) set up which they aim to use to train people to install and maintain offshore windfarms from the shore.

Racing for Formula Student (photo by Hull University)

Also there were the Hull University Formula Student team. A group of Engineering students who have built a racing car and race it in competitions. Their demonstration included a sit in simulator where people could have a go themselves - there was also a leaderboard going for the fastest lap times.

Smile! (Photo by Hull University)

Opposite me was a popular set of animal skeletons. I was told that these were donated to the University by the Natural History Museum in London when the University was founded in 1927. They are exquisite things, and included an ant eater, a horse, tortoise and a rhino skull.

Flying Magnets! (Photo by @HullUniScience)

Throughout the day I saw many people walking around with bags of goo, DNA sweets and all sorts of other goodies that were being given out. There were people extracting DNA from peas, and racing plankton (won by our very own Prof Dan Parsons) or even racing over a magnetic elevation track. Lots of fun was had by all and I'm looking forward to next year. If you attended the festival, why not leave a comment below about what you enjoyed most or what you would like to see in the future?

For more pictures, follow this link to the official Science Festival gallery.

Whilst I was writing this post, as part of a ongoing series of elaborate April Fool's gags from Google (which has seen me collect all 150 Pokemon and desperately search for Mew), one of the photos used got "Auto-Awesomed". The result was too good not to share.

Measuring Rainfall

Measuring Rainfall by Chris Skinner (@cloudskinner)

Before I embarked upon my PhD research I had not paid much attention to how we recorded rainfall. My previous experience, probably like many people, came from my Primary School that had a small weather station in the grounds, that consisted of a weather vane for measuring wind direction, and a raingauge for recording the rainfall. It was nothing more than a small bucket, which collected the rainfall and you recorded the level from the side each day. If it was up to 4mm, you would record it as 4mm of rain having fallen in the last day.

That was it, as far as my knowledge went, and as far as I assumed it went in regards to recording rainfall for the weather forecasts. I wasn’t wrong, the Met Office here in the UK do still make extensive use of raingauges to observe rainfall. I will let Ralph James explain them to you –

However, as I soon learnt, raingauges only measure rainfall at one stationary point. The little bucket I used at my Primary School could tell me how much rain fell at the school, but it could not tell me how much rain fell at my house, or how extensive that rainfall was. To fill in the gaps, meteorologists use weather radars. Over to Biz Kyte –

Brilliant! There we have it then, measuring rainfall, easy peasy. You just need a network of thousands of raingauges, enough radar stations to cover your country and enough highly qualified engineers and scientists to operate and maintain it all.

You won’t be surprised to hear that these conditions do not extend to many areas of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa for example has not had the resources and/or the political will to establish the infrastructure required for timely, accurate rainfall observations, and this has implications when trying to forecast floods, crop yields, droughts or water resources. Obviously, being able to observe rainfall in realtime in this region would be greatly beneficial, but the installation and maintenance of raingauge and radar networks is just not currently feasible.

One way is to turn to satellite observations. Satellite platforms carrying Passive Microwave (PM) sensors are the most accurate for this role, with the instruments measuring the amount of microwave backscatter from the Earth’s surface. As droplets of water scatter the microwave signal in a distinctive way it is possible to directly observe where it is raining and its relative intensity. But (there’s always a but), PM sensors have to be placed in Low Earth Orbits (LEO) to operate, and therefore travel over the planet’s surface, recording snap shots of the rainfall as it goes. To add to problem, sandy ground scatters microwaves in a similar way to water, making observations by PM satellites more difficult in arid regions, such as much of sub-Saharan Africa.

Another way, such as that adopted by the TAMSAT team at the University of Reading, is to use Thermal InfraRed (TIR) instruments mounted on geostationary platforms. These satellites orbit at a distance that allows them to orbit at the same speed as the Earth’s rotation, meaning they always observe the same area of the planet’s surface - this is known as a geo-stationary orbit. TAMSAT use a relationship called Cold Cloud Duration (CCD), where it is assumed that if a cloud is cold enough, it will be raining, and the amount of time a cloud is below that temperature will let the team calculate the rate of rainfall. It is an indirect relationship, so it does not directly record the rainfall, but it does provide an estimate that is accurate enough, and timely enough, to be useful in forecasting seasonal crop yields or droughts.

Again, there is a but. TAMSAT produces ten-day observations, useful for the above applications, but not very useful for flood forecasting, for example, that requires realtime observations at atleast a daily timestep. It is possible to use the CCD method for this, but the observations are highly uncertain so require some complex statistics to be properly used. This has led meteorologists to get creative.

Telecommunications are taking off in sub-Saharan Africa, with mobile phones spreading fast. Professor Hagit Messer, of the University of Tel Aviv, suggested that interference of signals sent between antennas by rainfall could be used to measure the rainfall rate between the antennas. Over a whole network of telecommunication antennae the spatial spread of rainfall and its intensity could be built up, evolving over time. This form of rainfall observation could be used to dramatically improve the spatial and temporal coverage over sub-Saharan Africa, with little need for additional investment.

And again, there is a but. Whether it is observation by radar, satellite or telecommunication networks, the instruments can only record where it is raining, when it is raining, and the relative intensity of the rainfall. That relative intensity needs calibrating, bringing scientists full circle back to the humble raingauge. There are raingauges in sub-Saharan Africa, but not a lot of them. The study area I researched had one gauge per 7,000km^2, enough to cover the whole of the UK with just 27 raingauges, and of course these weren’t evenly spread, concentrated along rivers and in towns, leaving large areas relatively uncovered.  They can also be poorly maintained and not all raingauges record all of the time.

There are some good stories about raingauges in Africa. A couple I have heard from the TAMSAT team are of one gauge that recorded no rainfall at night, even during the wet season. When investigated it was found the locals looking after the gauge were storing inside so it wouldn’t be stolen. Another gauge was consistently recording a light drizzle – this was caused by people hanging wet clothes on it to dry. We have similar issues in the UK, with one organisation who should know better placing a gauge on their roof next to an air conditioning vent that blew rainfall away from it.

One project that I am excited about is TAHMO. The project team have the highly ambitious objective of dramatically increasing the raingauge coverage (as well as coverage of other meteorological instruments), for sub-Saharan Africa by mass producing a cheap, self-contained weather station and distributing them to schools. One of the most significant outputs to date was the creation of a low cost acoustic disdrometer, that uses the vibrations of falling raindrops to measure rainfall rates and reports the readings automatically using mobile phone technology. For me, this is the great hope of rainfall observation for poorly gauged regions and really hope they can pull it off. For now, I’ll leave you with Rolf Hut discussing TAHMO, acoustic disdrometers and tinkering.