Occasional musings on meteorology and other bits of Earth science
Along with nearly everyone else in Scotland, I saw the Great Nacreous Cloud Display of 2016 this morning and yesterday evening. Yesterday (Monday 1 Feb), I only saw the clouds briefly before the light faded. But this morning at sunrise the clouds were there again as I waited for the train Infuriatingly, the most dramaticContinue reading Nacreous Clouds
As I noted earlier in the year, we didn’t have a stellar summer. And the whole-season climate-integrating device confirms it: The grapes this year went directly from hard and green to sad and wrinkled, never becoming edible at all. The eating apples, on the other hand, have had a stellar year; how well they doContinue reading Apples and grapes
I was down in the Lake District at the weekend, just to the North of Broughton-in-Furness. Not on a field trip this time; I was there to meet up with my family and go for a walk. But that still meant encountering some weather and some rocks. The weather was pleasant, with high, thin, cloudContinue reading Hexagons
I was on the annual geophysics field course last week, so, as promised, here is what happened. This year, we were in the White Peak, the part of the Peak District near Tideswell, Derbyshire, and as in previous years, with staff and students from the universities of Münster and Paris Sud. The students were dividedContinue reading Cows, Halos, Gravity
I have spent the last week on the 4th-year geophysics field course (see earlier posts here and here). I’ll blog about that soon; I want another little look at the data first. The first thing I did once I got home was to go on another field trip — the first year day trip toContinue reading A first look into the abyss of time
I’m back from the Helmsdale field course, so here are a few photos from the Thursday and Friday. We went to Lothbeg Point on Thursday morning. The river was much higher than last time I was here, so I didn’t attempt to cross it to view the outcrop from the far bank. It is notContinue reading Back to the far North: Part III
The Helmsdale field course continues, following yesterday’s stops to look at the Permian/Triassic sandstones to the south of the Moray Firth. We started today by visiting Ousdale quarry to look at the Devonian sediments. The weather was not auspicious: the cloudbase was lower than the quarry. This meant that the vegetation was very wet. SoContinue reading Back to the far North part II: a day of two halves.
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’m beginning to hear from a variety of sources the opinion expressed that this summer is particularly disappointing. Both farmers and beekeepers were grumbling loudly on the radio this morning, while ski lift operators were cheering about how long the skiing season had lasted. I knew already that bees were not having a good summerContinue reading The summer so far …
Academics get some time to think over the summer, and I have been busy thinking about a topic that forms part of a course that I taught for the first time this spring, and which I felt I had not got to the bottom of. I think it might make a good student research projectContinue reading Balance in science reporting
