Occasional musings on meteorology and other bits of Earth science
I’m on the Helmsdale field course again, with the students going into the third year of the geophysics degrees. Unlike two years ago I’m not here as a driver; we have switched to using a professional coach driver. Actually, I have sneaked onto the trip because someone dropped out after all the accommodation had beenContinue reading Back to the far North: part 1.
I spotted this nice display of noctilucent clouds last night. I have blogged about these clouds before; as I noted then I don’t observe them seriously, but I do keep an eye out for them. This year it has taken me until nearly the end of the season to see any. People sometimes give theContinue reading Noctilucent clouds: catching the end of the season
I spent yesterday afternoon at the University of Edinburgh’s graduation ceremony. I am in two minds about attending graduations. They are quite long, and you have to listen to a speech which you have heard several times before. But I think it is important to say goodbye to each year’s crop of geophysics graduates asContinue reading Leaving the nest
We went for a short walk today, to Fast Castle, a small ruin on the coast between Dunbar and St. Abbs. There isn’t a lot of castle left; we really went there to look at the nesting seabirds, such as this handsome razorbill. Fast Castle isn’t that far from Dunbar, but it is far enoughContinue reading Silurian and Devonian: Hutton’s unconformity
I returned from a short holiday to find a package containing these shiny metal things waiting in my office. Now, you might wonder why I have been spending my employer’s money on steampunk plant-pot stands. As is often the case, the answer to an odd question is to do with gravity. When our Lacoste-Romberg gravityContinue reading Cast in Aluminium
This year, the annual retreat for some of our staff and Ph.D students has been scheduled at a time when I can go to it. Which is nice, but it does mean that I have to work up a talk on whatever research I am managing to get done. And I was just scratching myContinue reading The eruption of Calbuco, and its stratospheric aftermath
One of the odd jobs that I have ended up doing is the care and maintenance of our gravity meters. We are lucky to have these instruments; they are very long-lived and a new one would be a very expensive purchase. The fact that we have three in working order is largely because one ofContinue reading Gravity: the vintage gear keeps on working
As I have noted before, a side effect of having been on the Helmsdale geology excursion with the geophysics students is that I can not walk past a sandstone wall without looking for examples of current bedding. Sometimes there are other things to be seen as well. This block is in High School Yards andContinue reading Faulting close to home
As noted in a previous post, we had a nice view of the recent eclipse from Edinburgh, and we also took readings of various meteorological variables as part of Reading University’s NEWEX experiment. The plot below shows the temperature data recorded by some keen meteorology students, along with temperatures and solar irradiance data from ourContinue reading Solar Eclipse: the weather report
Everybody loves a solar eclipse, even if the zone of totality is in as inconvenient a place as the Faroe islands. We set up open viewing (and observation of the associated weather) in the meteorology lab on the top floor of the University’s James Clerk Maxwell Building (JCMB). It isn’t often that we get soContinue reading Not the Faroes, but almost
