Professor Paul Hardaker, Institute of Physics  Chief Executive, has commented on a speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, at the Royal Society, London.

George Osborne,Chancellor of the Exchequer

It is really encouraging to know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognises the central role that science can play in creating robust economic growth for the UK. The proposed framework for capital investment includes some key features that will be vital to keep this country at the forefront of innovation and research.

Paul Hardaker

Link

Institute of Physics comments on George Osborne’s speech at the Royal Society (IOP News)

New research suggests that the rate of failure in Indian summer monsoon will increase over the next two centuries, due to global warming [1].

The Indian farmers rely on the monsoons to disperse freshwater on agricultural land. Failure of the summer monsoons could be very detrimental to India’s economy.

Walker Circulation

The Walker circulation is a vast loop of winds that influences climate across much of the globe, including the Indian summer monsoons.

Image courtesy of NOAA

Walker circulation describes the air flow in the tropics in the lower atmosphere. The Walker circulation is generated by the pressure gradient that results from a high pressure system over the eastern Pacific ocean, and a low pressure system over Indonesia.

El Niño

The Southern Oscillation is the natural variation in the temperature of the surface of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean and the surface air pressure. This occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years. The extremes of this climate pattern’s oscillations, El Niño (warm) and La Niña (cool), cause extreme weather events across many regions of the world.

The Walker circulation brings areas of high pressure to the western Indian Ocean, bringing the monsoons. However, in years when El Niño occurs, the winds get shifted eastward, bringing high pressure over India and the effect is to suppress the monsoons.

The predictions

Jacob Schewe and Anders Levermann simulations suggest that as temperatures increase in the future, the Walker circulation, will on average bring more high pressure over India; even though the occurrence of El Niño doesn’t increase.

The effect of this will be an increase in the occurrence of monsoons failing to form and an increase in drought across India.

Reference

Jacob Schewe and Anders Levermann (2012), A statistically predictive model for future monsoon failure in India, Environ. Res. Lett. 7 044023

Link

Indian monsoon failure more frequent with warming, IOP News

Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, about 100 km north-east of Rome.

The 6.3 magnitude quake, that struck on 6 April 2009, heavily damaged the city of L’Aquila and killed 309 people.

The prosecution argued that the scientists gave false reassurances before the earthquake. The defense argued that earthquake prediction is difficult and that it is impossible to make an accurate prediction of major quakes.

The convicted

• Franco Barberi, head of Serious Risks Commission
• Enzo Boschi, former president of the National Institute of Geophysics
• Giulio Selvaggi, director of National Earthquake Centre
• Gian Michele Calvi, director of European Centre for Earthquake Engineering
• Claudio Eva, physicist
• Mauro Dolce, director of the the Civil Protection Agency’s earthquake risk office
• Bernardo De Bernardinis, former vice-president of Civil Protection Agency’s technical department

All seven have been sentenced to six years in prison for issuing false reassurances.

Before the convictions, more than 5,000 scientists, organised by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, signed an open letter to the Italian President Napolitano in support of the accused. The letter can be found here (pdf).

The aftermath

The worry is that science itself has been put on trial. Scientists should not have to make statements or not, in worry of being subject to lawsuits. This could discourage scientists becoming involved in public engagement.

Links

IOP News

One of the predicted outcomes of global climate change is the phenomena of “global weirding”. This basically says that extremes of weather will become more common.

Image by Bidgee

Of course, there is rather natural expected variation in the weather and extreme phenomena have always occurred. The claim is that global warming is making record breaking weather more and more common.

In the UK

The Environment Agency, Met Office and Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) held a joint briefing in London. They warned that a the UK must get ready for for regular swings of drought conditions and flooding.

This summer?

This summer was the wettest in the UK for 100 years, according to Met Office figures. The Environment Agency issued over 1,000 river flood alerts and warnings for the period of the 1st June at 15th July. This was the most alerts issued in a summer since 2007.

Then in August the hottest temperature recorded was 32.4°C at Cavendish, Suffolk, on 18 August.

The UK mean temperature was 0.4 °C above the 1981-2010 average. It was a wet month in south-west England and south Wales and in northern England, southern and eastern Scotland, with a few areas having over twice the average rainfall. In contrast much of East Anglia and south-east England and parts of north-west Scotland and the west of Northern Ireland were drier than normal. Many areas were somewhat duller than usual, the sunnier exceptions being Northern Ireland and the western side of Scotland.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/2012/august.html

Cold winters

The winter of 2010-2011 came early, with snow in the United Kingdom falling in November 2010. This was the earliest snowfall in 17 years. A night time low temperature of −9.1 °C was recorded on the 25th/26th at Redesdale Camp, Northumberland. From January on the winter conditions were more normal.

The winter of 2009–2010 was known as “The Big Freeze” here in the UK and was part of the severe winter weather in Europe. It was the coldest winter since 1978-79, with a mean temperature of 1.5 °C.

The question

The BIG question must be is this all due to global weirding, or is this normal variations?

Links

BBC News

Physics is central to the economy of the UK. Whether through the application of novel research and technologies, or through the skills and abilities of physics-trained workers, physics drives businesses and innovation.

Professor Sir Peter Knight President, Institute of Physics

According to a new report by the Institute of Physics, about 4% of of employees in the UK work in companies that could not exist without a knowledge of physics.

Image by Bill Bertram

Of course, the definition of a “physics based company” is wide. Supermarket checkouts would not work without laser physics, for example. However, the study only takes into account the companies that would be unable to exist without ability to respond and adapt to latest advances in research.

A good example here would be Oxford Instruments, whose annual turnover of £337 million is almost entirely “physics based”.

The full report The Importance of Physics to the UK Economy can be found here (opens a PDF).

Links

One million UK jobs depend on physics, IOP News