Blow a bubble and spot a contrail in the name of climate
By Sarah Baldwin
Get involved in the OPAL Climate Survey and discover more about the climate around you.
What impact can we have on the climate and how good are we at adapting to climate change? Take part in the OPAL Climate Survey, launching in March 2011, and contribute to a nationwide survey investigating these issues. I talked to Dr Geoff Jenkins of the Royal Meteorological Society who explained, ‘We’re asking people to go outside and observe and measure the weather. What they see and record will be useful in checking the models we use for forecasting weather and predicting climate’.
Scientists at the Met Office and Royal Meteorological Society are asking everyone in England to take part. So what are you being asked to do? Well you don’t need any hi-tech equipment… and some of it will seems like child’s play: spotting plane trails to measure air temperature and humidity, watching cloud movement to record wind direction at cloud level, blowing bubbles to measure wind speed and noting down the clothes you wear to get a better understanding of thermal comfort. But the data which will come out of it is important to key meteorological research.
Looking for plane trails in the sky
Contrails form when the temperature is cold enough (below about -40°C) but the air is humid – in a similar way to when you breathe out on a cold day and can see your breath. When fuel is burned in an aircraft’s engine, the water vapour formed mixes with the very cold air and condenses, forming a trail of ice crystals. These contrails can warm the climate because they stop heat radiation leaving our atmosphere, in a similar (but smaller) way to greenhouse gases. The Met Office wants to have a better idea of where contrails form across England, and your results will help it do this.
Geoff explains, ‘We know these contrails can have a warming effect on climate, but how much is very uncertain. Getting as many reports as possible from across the country will help us make better estimates.’
Mirror, mirror on the ground…..
By simply reflecting the sky in a mirror pane on the ground and adding a North, South, East and West, you can watch as clouds move across the sky, and track their path. Why are we interested though? Winds are a major player in our weather systems. The line on the mirror tells us the direction the wind is blowing at cloud level, another piece of data which goes into unravelling the climate puzzle.
Riding the wind
Who doesn’t love blowing bubbles? In this fun third activity, blow a bubble, watch where it travels to and run after it. Then blow another bubble and time how long it takes to travel 10 metres. It sounds incredibly simple, and it is, but the scientific data collected from this experiment will help meteorologists in their research into the effect of our local environment, including trees and buildings, on wind speed and direction near the ground. The data will also contribute to validating computer models which forecast weather.
Feeling hot, hot, hot…
It’s a cloudy day, you’re waiting for the train and you’re freezing cold. Your friend looks surprised, and complains she’s boiling hot. Why? The last activity in the survey will help uncover, for example, how climate affects how hot or cold we feel and whether people in the north of England really feel more comfortable at lower temperatures than southerners. Scientists are looking for patterns across ages, gender and regions, to see if there really are any differences in people’s tolerance of weather conditions. By recording your clothes, noting the temperature and indicating how warm or cold you feel, you can help them do just that.
Global climate change is predicted to result in milder winters and hotter summers across the UK, with more frequent heatwaves. This exercise will illustrate our ability to cope with these changes. Dr Mark McCarthy, Climate Research Scientist at the Met Office says, ‘Climate change poses many challenges for both the natural environment and human populations worldwide. These new insights will complement and build on our existing research looking at the potential impacts of climate change through the twenty-first century.’
Get involved: anyone can take part. Download your free survey pack from the OPAL website. Publish your results on the OPAL website, where you can see how your findings compare to others across the country.
And that’s not all……
Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you….
The OPAL Weather Roadshow will be touring the country, bringing the weather to you. Ever fancied having a go at being a weather forecaster, ,making a cloud in a bottle, or even your very own tornado? It’s all possible with the roadshow, which is coming to a town near you! Check out the touring dates on the OPAL website.
Ask the expert and test your knowledge
It’s your chance to ask those burning questions about weather and climate change. Don’t hold back! Do you have your doubts about whether climate change even exists? Or just want to know how lightning works? No question is too big or small for our experts. Fire away at the OPAL climate survey pages. Test your knowledge with the climate game and get to grips with some facts and figures.