Goce probe will unearth planet’s secrets

Philip Moore

25.3.09
By tracking variations in Earth’s gravity, a satellite can detect currents and even oil deposits.

A European spaceship is to show scientists the inner workings of Earth, from the movements of ocean currents to the location of oil deposits. Its data will enable them to detect the flows of molten rock that underlie the movements of tectonic plates and cause earthquakes.

The Goce probe, launched last week, will measure tiny anomalies in Earth’s gravity, caused by anything from mountain ranges to subterranean lava flows or ocean trenches. Rune Floberghagen, Goce mission manager, said: “Imagine a snowflake, which weighs a fraction of a gram, falling onto the deck of a supertanker. The impact the supertanker experiences from that snowflake is comparable to the sensitivity of our instrument.”

Scientists have long known that the Earth’s gravity varies all over its surface — and that measuring those changes could give insights into the planet’s inner workings. However, designing an instrument capable of measuring them, which would also survive the rigours of blast-off, has until now proved impossible. This weekend, Goce, short for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, was declared operational. “Goce will yield details of the Earth’s gravity field to an accuracy and resolution that is simply unobtainable by existing terrestrial and space techniques,” said Professor Philip Moore of Newcastle University, who specialises in gravity research. At school, children are taught that Earth’s gravity makes falling bodies accelerate at a standard 9.8m per second per second. In reality this figure varies slightly depending on where you are. The shape of the Earth, mountains, ocean trenches, and the density of the ground beneath your feet all affect Earth’s pulling power. Goce will map those variations, showing how gravity diverges from the average in different parts of the world. This will provide a benchmark against which changes in ocean currents, the melting of ice-caps, or volcanic processes can be clearly shown.

Mark Drinkwater, Goce mission scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA), said it was necessary to measure changes in ocean circulation to understand climate change. “Currents carry large quantities of heat from the equator to the poles. The system in the north Atlantic, for example, helps to keep Europe’s climate relatively mild,” he said. For geologists, perhaps the most exciting prospect is of being able to “peer” deep below the Earth’s crust. It will exploit the fact that minerals in the crust vary in density and hence in the amount of gravity they generate. It means that oil and mineral deposits or ground-water reservoirs will all leave their own subtle signature on the Earth’s gravitational field.

See the full article published in the Times Online (22.03.2009) - Probe will unearth planet’s secrets

An official video by ESA describing the GOCE (Gravity Field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) mission.

workshop on preservation of ancient stone monuments

David Graham

25.3.09
The School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CeG) and the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS, School of Arts & Cultures) co-hosted the first workshop on scientific and management issues related to the preservation of ancient stone monuments in the countryside. This workshop was held on March 9 - 10 at Newcastle University and was supported by a AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Research Clusters grant jointly held by ICCHS (Dr Aron Mazel) and CeG (Prof David Graham). The workshop was highly successful, bringing together environmental scientists and heritage practitioners mandated to delineate factors that affect the decay rate of ancient monuments. Factors discusses ranged from physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms on stone surfaces themselves to macroscopic factors such as surface and sub-surface drainage, accessibility to the public and grazing livestock, and climate change considerations. Workshop attendees included experts from Newcastle University (Mazel and Dr Myra Giesen from ICCHS, and Graham, Prof Ian Head, Prof David Manning and Dr Geoff Parkin from CEG), English Heritage (Kate Wilson and Dr Robert Young), Northumberland County Council (Dr Chris Burgess), Queen’s University Belfast (Dr Patricia Warke), the University of Warwick (Dr Elizabetta Zanardini), and the University of Bradford (Prof Mark Seaward). The meeting included presentations discussing management tools for prioritization of sites (Warke), the role of lichens in the preservation and destruction of stone surfaces (Seaward), and molecular biological methods for investigation key surface reactions (Head). A site visit to the Lordenshaw rock art panels near Rothbury in central Northumberland also was included to place the monuments into their natural context and follow-up strategic discussions were held among site managers and scientists aimed at developing targeted projects to further promote Cluster activities. Preparations for the next workshop (June 24 and 25, 2009) and the development of project webpage are underway.

image: workshop attendees studying stone age carved pots near at Lordenshaw

euro-american telematics and information systems conference (Prague)

Neil Thorpe

24.3.09
Neil Thorpe has recently accepted an invitation to become a member of the Scientific Programme Committee for the forthcoming Euro American Conference on Telematics and Information Systems to be held in Prague between 3-5 June, 2009. The aim of the conference is to discuss new opportunities to increase digital citizenship and includes a specific theme on e-Transport. Other themes include e-Inclusion, e-Government, e-Health, e-Learning, e-Culture and e-Entertainment.  EATIS 2009 encourages the use of Information System (IS), Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Telematics Systems allowing citizens a better participation at various levels of government and public services, as well as the ethics component in the use of services and technologies related to IS, ICT and telematics. The main emphasis will be given on the telematics systems of geographically distributed network industries such as power or electricity suppliers' systems and transport systems. The conference website may be found at http://www.tapmag.cz/eatis2009/

environmental engineers for tomorrow

Claire Furlong and Jaime Amezaga

19.3.09
A collaborative workshop was held at IIT Delhi under the EPSRC “Enviromental engineers for tomorrow: developing a shared toolbox through collaboration”. The delegates at this workshop were PhD and early careers researchers from CeG and the School of Medicine at Newcastle University, Department of Civil Engineering at University of Glasgow and the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Delhi. The aim of this workshop was to create an opportunity to disseminate our research, to discuss the following topics using various activities:

• motivation for PhD in engineering
• key difficulties
• potential improvements in capacity building
• value of PhD for career prospects

Four intrepid PhD students representing the full diversity of environmental engineering research at CeG attended this workshop: Glyn Rhys-Tyler (Transport), Claire Furlong (Environmental Engineering in Developing Countries), Sharon Velasquez Orta (Microbial Fuel Cells), Phil Renforth (Geo-Enviromental), they were joined by Morris Anglin from the Institute of Health and Society who is researching the effects of particulates on cardiovascular health.

The workshop included a day of presentation, an interactive day, laboratory visits and field visits. The hosts, the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT managed to fit all these activities into two and a half days. All the respondents found this workshop highly rewarding and some of the feedback gained from the Newcastle University delegates can be seen below:

“For me the best part of the workshop was getting to know some individuals outside of the PhD to know that they have very varied, interesting background and have a wealth of rich experiences that makes up who they are as individuals.” Morris Anglin

“Although there are obvious idiosyncrasies between projects in India and the UK it was gratifying to see that we work to tackle challenges common to all of us across the globe, and we share similar frustration during times of slow progress. We agreed that together we are stronger through interdisciplinary and multi-stage collaboration, where the achievements of fellow graduate students inspire us to succeed. We are not engaged in purely an academic exercise and we strive to exploit our research through collaboration with industry." Phil Renforth

“Personally, I was very impressed by the quality of the research carried out at both IIT and CRRI. The workshop provided the opportunity to see how research methods are being applied to a range of environmental challenges not normally encountered in a UK context. The workshop served to challenge some preconceptions of research and policy priorities, and raised questions about how environmental challenges can be most effectively addressed.” Glyn Rhys-Tyler

“Environmental Engineers for Tomorrow” is a project supported by EPSRC’s international programme “Collaborating for Success through People.” It is led by Dr Jaime Amezaga (Newcastle University) in partnership with Prof Bill Sloan (Glasgow University) and Prof Mukesh Khare (IITD).

see the photos

deep heat

Ian Head, David Manning and Paul Younger

19.3.09
Ian Head, David Manning and Paul Younger explore life deep beneath the surface.

In the drive to discover environmentally benign forms of energy, NERC-sponsored researchers at Newcastle University have been getting into hot water.

We have been exploring the possibilities of harnessing geothermal energy from deep below the Earth. Our work has highlighted the potential of geothermal energy as an important part of the UK's energy economy. But is has also opened a window on the fascinating microbes thousands of metres under the Earth's surface.

Soon, it will not be just the microbes that are making a living from the deep.

Image: Bacterial cells from a deep groundwater sample stained with a dye that binds to DNA and fluoresces green.

see full Planet Earth online article

scientists warn on climate tipping points

Jim Hall

19.3.09
A survey of top climate scientists has revealed there is a real chance of key climate tipping points being passed with serious consequences for the planet.

In a major study involving 43 of the world’s leading climate experts, scientists have for the first time worked out the likelihood of one of the major climate thresholds being breached. Tipping points are used to describe a situation where damage due to climate change occurs irreversibly and at an increasing rate.

In this latest research - published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - the internationally-renowned climate team conclude there is a 1 in 6 chance of at least one threshold being passed with a rise of just 2-4 degrees in global average temperature.If the average increase in temperature is higher than this, then the probability becomes 1 in 2.

Newcastle University’s Professor Jim Hall, Deputy Director, Engineering, of the Tyndall Centre on Climate Change and one of the five authors of the paper, said the aim was to produce policy-relevant information about the likelihood of a tipping point being toppled.

“For the first time we have managed to quantify the uncertainty of these phenomena and the take-home message is tipping points are serious and should play a key role in policy decision making,” said Professor Hall.

“Think of it as like taking out insurance cover. Insurers use probabilities to work out how much we should pay to protect ourselves in the event of something going seriously wrong.

“And it’s exactly the same for the climate. We have provided real data for these key climate indicators and what this has shown is there are good reasons why we should be taking urgent action now to reduce the possibility of something going catastrophically wrong in the future.”

See full press release

torrential rain and flooding to get worse in Britain

Hayley Fowler

19.3.09

Torrential rain and flash flooding is to grow more severe across Britain by the end of the century, according to new research.

Scientists predict that warmer air caused by climate change will lead to rain storms becoming more intense and more frequent during autumn, winter and spring.

The quantity of rain which falls during extreme downpours will increase by up to 30 per cent by 2070. For some parts of the country this could mean up to 3.2 inches of rain falling in a day – nearly an inch more than the average rain fall currently experienced in severe storms.

The researchers fear that severe flooding, similar to that which hit much of England during the summer of 2007, will become far more common.

Dr Hayley Fowler, who led the research at the water resource systems research laboratory at Newcastle University, said: "What the data quite clearly shows is that we're going to see far more of these extreme downpours in years to come."

see full Telegraph article

CeG hosts GIS masterclass for local school students

Tom Bramald

16.3.09
The School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences has delivered a one-day course to Year 9 (13 years old) students from Longbenton Community College. The course included an overview of geomatics followed by an introductory GIS exercise from the Ordnance Survey's GIS Zone. The students were then challenged to use a GIS to study volcanoes and their potential to disrupt national infrastructure in Italy, a country they had studied in depth in their geography studies earlier in the year.

CeG offers a wide variety of workshops and talks to schools. Details of these, and sessions from other subject areas in the university, are available on www.teacherstoolkit.org.uk

CeG antarctic field programme success

Matt King

16.3.09
enlarge image
The remote and hostile Antarctic is one step closer to being understood thanks to a recent year-long field programme led by CeG researchers. The focus of the project is the ocean tides in the southern Weddell Sea adjacent to West Antarctica where the tides are some of the most poorly modelled on Earth. This is important, since inaccurate tide predictions affect satellite estimates of the mass balance of the ice sheet. Back in November 2007 thirteen GPS receivers were deployed (by former CeG staff member David Barber) on large floating blankets known as the Larsen C and Filchner-Ronne ice shelves covering a region larger than western Europe. After more than 1 year, the last of the receivers has now been retrieved and the data turned into time series of motion for each site. Despite the difficulty of powering equipment through the Antarctic winter the data return rate is very high. The next step is to model the tidally-induced motion of the ice. The project is led by Matt King, Peter Clarke and colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey and Earth and Space Research (USA), with vital assistance from CeG technical staff, and funded by the NERC Antarctic Funding Initiative.

SET for Britain

Phil Renforth

11.3.09
Organised by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, SET for Britain is an event where the UK’s top early career researchers present their work to members of parliament and eminent scientists. This year (9th March), CeG PhD student, Phil Renforth, was invited to present a poster at the Houses of Commons from an application pool of over 600 fellow researchers. His poster, entitled ‘Engineering Soils for Climate Change’ received warm interest over the course of the evening from both scientists and politicians.

SET for Britain was founded by the late Eric Wharton who expressed the aim of the event was to foster greater interactive dialogue between younger researchers and Members in Westminster. For more information see: http://www.setforbritain.org.uk/

CeG students going to Wembley

Ed Byers and Alex Colman

10.3.09

Four Civil Engineering students from Newcastle University were amongst the teams presenting their ideas to RWE npower, in the 2009 finals of The Energy Challenge held at Wembley Stadium on the 16 March.

In only its third year, the npower Energy Challenge has already won prizes for innovative graduate and student engagement. The Energy Challenge proposes a question each year, which undergraduate engineering students from universities all over the country are invited to address.

The question this year is, ‘What should a power generation company’s response be to climate change?’

CeG students Ed Byers, Alex Colman, James Hodgson and Adam Snowball submitted their application in late January, and on the basis of their initial solution, were invited to regional heats.

The regional heats took place on the 18th of February, at npower's workshop and training centre in Knottingley, near Leeds. Constrained to a 6 minute presentation, with 5 minutes of questioning to follow, 8 teams presented their solutions to a panel of industry experts. There were a wide range of solutions, from several different universities, including Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham, Newcastle and Cambridge.

The CeG team won a place in the finals, to be on 16th March at Wembley Stadium. Each team will be grilled by npower’s top management and will be competing against other university undergraduate engineering teams from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College and Birmingham.

RWE npower generates and supplies energy which npower sells in the UK. The parent company, RWE Group, is widely established through Europe and openly admits that it is the single largest carbon emitter in Europe. Its approach to tackling Climate Change and the future of European energy supply is of utmost importance.

The team hopes to build on the excellent results recently achieved by CeG in the 2008 RAE, confirming the department as one of the best in the UK.

Thanks must go to those who have provided us with their generous support. In particular, Dermott Roddy (SWAN), Ian Burdon (PB power) and David Parker. Finally, sincerest and indebted thanks to 'Coach' Jaime Amezaga, who has been an invaluable source of guidance.

CeG capacity and skills building in IIT Delhi (IITD)

Russell Davenport

10.3.09
Members of CeG have helped to build new capacities and skills in IITD and provide the opportunity to bolster collaboration between the two institutes through any potential future research projects.

The EPSRC grant “Environmental engineers of tomorrow: developing a shared toolbox through collaboration” recently enabled the delivery of a five-day specialist workshop at IITD. The event was identified as one of the major activities of the grant at an earlier trip to India in September 2008. IITD commissioned a new laboratory for the event, which now houses equipment and consumables that the EPSRC kindly allowed to be purchased from the grant. The grant, which strengthens the links between CeG ad IITD, builds on 6-years of research collaboration between Dr Jaime Amezaga, CeG, and Prof Mukesh Khare, IITD.

Russell Davenport led a team of six environmental engineers to deliver the workshop, “A Molecular Biology Approach for Environmental Engineering”, to biology, biotechnology and civil engineering PhD students in IITD. The organising team of collaborators in IITD included Professors Sreekrishnan and Mukesh Khare and PhD students Mr. Zia Ahammad and Mr Ramesh Montepalli. Professor Harpal Singh and Mr Manoj Kumar kindly provided access and guidance to their Confocal Scanning Laser Microscope.

The workshop consisted of two days of didactic talks and case studies on the use of molecular techniques to understand biologically-important engineered systems, followed by three days of laboratory practicals. It drew up on material from previous EPSRC Platform-funded events and the skills of Platform and Marie-Curie Ecoserv members from Environmental Engineering. The members of the team included Mrs Fiona Read, Dr Cesar Mota, Dr Dana Ofiteru, Dr Ernest Chi-Fru, and Miss Micol Bellucci. Dr Trevor Booth who manages the Biomedical Imaging Unit, Medical School also accompanied the team to provide training and expertise in confocal microscopy.

Although some of the students were knowledgeable about biological techniques, they were particularly pleased to practice them and discover new and interesting ways of applying them to challenging global environmental problems. The instructors were impressed with the standard of the students and enjoyed the challenge of sharing their knowledge, skills and research with them in a new environment. They also enjoyed experiencing the sites, sounds, shopping and culinary delights of India!

After the workshop, Mr Zia Ahammad said “We are getting very good responses from the participants. They are really very excited and interested to do some work with the new molecular techniques. Everybody is very happy.”

During the visit Russell Davenport and Cesar Mota met also with RCUK India Office to discuss mechanisms of funding for continuing the research collaboration. Naomi Beaumont, Deputy Director of RCUK India Office found the topics of the current collaboration “very exciting”.

european chemical industry council (Cefic) long-range research initiative award

Russell Davenport

6.3.09
Russell Davenport has been awarded (€400,000) by the Cefic LRI programme to investigate enhanced biodegradation regulatory tests for determining persistency of manufactured chemicals. The project, in collaboration with AstraZeneca SHE, Pfizer and DHI, Denmark, will investigate the influence of microbial biomass and diversity on the probability of chemical biotransformation in standardised tests.

The European Community's most comprehensive form of legislation to date, the Registration Evaluation Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical (REACH) substances, recently came in to force. It is aimed at helping to protect human health and the environment through earlier and better identification of the intrinsic properties of manufactured chemical substances.

Under REACH, regulatory emphasis has shifted to identifying those chemicals that pose greatest risk to human health and the environment, i.e. those that are persistent, bioaccumulatory and toxic. Persistent chemicals are those that remain undegraded in the environment for long periods of time. In a regulatory context they are usually defined by their inability to degrade over a given time period in a given environmental compartment using standardised tests that rely upon a microbial inoculum prepared from an environmental source. Current screening tests are not designed to test for persistency and are often highly variable. This variability is largely attributed to poor standardisation and understanding of the microbial component of the tests.

The current research project will therefore, in part, address biodiversity-function relationships, which are of fundamental biological interest. This will be achieved by evaluating the variability of microbial abundance and diversity of inocula from different environments in relation to biodegradation outcomes. The overall aim is to develop a rational approach to improve and standardise tests for persistence assessments.

schools, google earth and CeG

Tom Bramald

6.3.09
CeG has delivered two different Google Earth sessions in one day for local school teachers and students.
 
Starting in Sunderland, CeG delivered a 90 minute session to local teachers about how geomatics and GPS can be used with Google Earth to support teaching and learning as part of a Royal Geographical Society Teachers CPD event.
 
In the afternoon, 30 gifted and talented students from years 7, 8 and 9 at Kenton school were shown how to get more out of Google Earth in terms of navigation and data entry.  The students will now be responsible for teaching their peers about Google Earth.
 
Newcastle University provides many free resources to schools through the Teachers Toolkit: www.teacherstoolkit.org.uk. Any enquiries about CeG support for schools can be routed either through the Teachers Toolkit or directly to t.m.bramald@ncl.ac.uk.

pioneering research from Newcastle university

Phil Blythe and Claire Walsh

5.3.09
Two teams from Newcastle University have been singled out to take part in a national event showcasing some of the most cutting-edge research going on in Britain today.

The MESSAGE team – which includes experts from Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (EECE), Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CeG) and Computing Science – and the Climate Change Impact Research team, also based in CeG, are featuring today at the Pioneers ’09 Event in London.Organised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, they are two of just 23 teams from across the UK picked out for their pioneering work.

Professor of Intelligent Transport Systems Phil Blythe said: “Out of the 23 projects selected for the exhibition two are from Newcastle University."This is a fantastic achievement and reiterates the quality and societal relevance of the research we are undertaking."

Using a Weather Generator, the Climate Change team will demonstrate how our climate may change over the next century, producing valuable insights into how buildings, infrastructure and utilities – and those responsible for them - will need to respond.

Dr Claire Walsh explains: "It is absolutely critical that we plan and equip ourselves for the future right now. We need to develop strategies and make changes that will enable us to adapt to the impacts which will increasingly be felt over the next five to ten years."

The MESSAGE project – which stands for Mobile Environmental Sensing Systems Across Grid Environments – is developing wireless sensors that can be fitted to vehicles, infrastructure and mobile phones to produce real-time, second-by-second, metre-by-metre data on traffic pollution.The team will show how the sensors can be integrated together and the data consolidated into a constantly updated, interactive ‘pollution map’.

In other transport news, leaders from across the North East were at the university last week to find out more about our expertise in road, rail and shipping.Organised by the university’s Transport team, Professor Phil Blythe said the aim was to highlight the work going on at Newcastle and find new ways in which it could be used to improve transport networks of the future across the region.

Fiona Gough, Deputy Regional Director for the Environment, Government Office North East, said: "This event has given us a real flavour of what is going on at the University. What we need to do now is take that information away and make use of it to improve our region’s transport networks."

David Marshall, Transport Manager for the North East Assembly, added: "We have a world-class transport research centre here at the university and we need to take advantage of that. This is a first step."

petroleum geoscience conference success

Andrew Aplin

5.3.09
CeG geochemistry PhD student Zayana Al-Aisri has been awarded the prize for the best oral presentation at the Petroleum Geoscience Research Forum held in Aberdeen, in November 2008. The prize consists of a sponsored place at the Geological Society's Petroleum Group dinner at the Natural History Museum in London in June 2009 and a Geological Society publication of her choice. Zayana, who is from Oman and sponsored by Petroleum Development of Oman (PDO), gave a presentation based on her PhD research here in CeG, supervised by Professor Andrew Aplin and Dr Martin Jones, on the controls on subsurface petroleum biodegradation in the East Ghaba Basin of North Oman.

CeG leads 6th form conference

Tom Bramald

university focus on engagement with employers and professional organisations to develop new demand driven training

Clare Gordon

27.2.09
The School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University are forging further links with employers and professionals in order to meet training requirements in the form of industry relevant, short, intensive programmes, many of which address serious skills shortages. The continuing popularity and growth of these courses has prompted the appointment of Clare Gordon as the new Business Development Officer within the Professional Development Team in order to facilitate engagement and build further relationships with external organisations and professionals. This has included collaborating with the Institution of Civil Engineers to assess the demand for Civil Engineering Workforce training in the North East, investigating potential stumbling blocks to becoming professionally qualified and assessing the demand for accredited further learning programmes. Other successes include bespoke courses meeting strategic training requirements for the Environment Agency, the Ordnance Survey and engineering consultancy firms. The school has also been successful in securing funds from the North East Higher Level Skills Pathfinder to support the development of new courses with further bids anticipated shortly. The courses currently on offer are relevant to those working in the fields of Environmental Engineering, Geochemistry, Geomatics, Geotechnics and Structures, Transport and Water Resources.

A list of short courses can be found on the CPD website at www.ceg.ncl.ac.uk/cpd. Anyone interested in collaborating to develop a short course should contact the Professional Development Unit on 0191 222 7439 or at ceg.cpd@newcastle.co.uk

transport@newcastle - interim regional transport board exhibition

Gareth Evans

26.2.09
The broad transport activities throughout Newcastle University are being brought together under the banner of Transport@Newcastle. To demonstrate and promote the diverse research strengths and activities in the area of transport, an exhibition was held in the Kings Road Centre where members from both the IRTB and other organisations responsible for regional transport were able to meet the various groups within the University and discuss current and future research projects.

Posters were on display from the following groups:

• Transport Operations Research Group (TORG)
• Newcastle Railway Research Centre (NewRail)
• Centre for Urban and Regional Development (CURDS)
• Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (EECE)
• Geomatics
• Marine Science and Technology (MaST)

To support the poster displays, a number of demonstrations were also presented to highlight the capabilities of the Transport@Newcastle groups:

• MESSAGE Wireless Environmental Sensors, deployed in both Gateshead and Leicester • Real-time traffic monitoring and modelling using UTMC SCOOT data
• Modelling of environmental emissions from vehicles
• Laser Scanning, used for data capture and monitoring for transport corridors, and recoding of street-side furniture assets
• Immersive Video for Future Traveller Information in the Virtual Reality Suite
• Tyndall Centre Cities Model, a land-use, transport, economic and environmental model of London

The exhibition was extremely successful, with very positive feedback received from all the invitees to the event. Transport is seen as an important and cross-cutting research theme for the University, and it is hoped that the integration of all the research skills and expertise under the Transport@Newcastle initiative can be used to develop a closer relationship between the University and regional transport organisations.

highly cited article selected as featured fast moving front paper

Hayley Fowler

26.2.09
A journal paper published in the Journal of Hydrology on 10 January 2005 “New estimates of future changes in extreme rainfall across the UK using regional climate model integrations. 1. Assessment of control climate” by two CeG researchers, Hayley Fowler and Chris Kilsby, along with colleagues Phil Jones (Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia) and Marie Ekstrom (CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra, Australia) has been recently identified by Thomson Reuters’ Essential Science IndicatorsSM to be one of the most cited papers in the research area of Regional Climate Model Integrations.

The paper assesses how well regional climate models are able to represent extreme rainfall in different regions of the UK; a necessary requirement if we want to use climate models to investigate how rainfall may change under future climate conditions (published in a companion paper, Ekström et al., 2005). It is, to our knowledge, the first example of the use of regional frequency analysis in extreme value analysis to provide more reliable estimates of high return period rainfall events using pooling of regional climate model information. This method allows more accurate assessment of potential future changes to rare events. The results from this work have been used in interim policy guidance on Flood and Coastal Defence Appraisal by the UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to produce new indicative sensitivity ranges for peak rainfall intensity as well as being cited in the IPCC 4th Assessment Report.

The paper and a response from the authors will be featured on the Thomson Reuters’ ScienceWatch® website as a Fast Moving Front paper for March 2009 at the following link: http://sciencewatch.com/dr/fmf/2009/09marfmf/09marfmfFowl/

Notes: Thomson Reuters’ Essential Science IndicatorsSM is a resource that enables researchers to conduct ongoing, quantitative analyses of research performance and track trends in science. Covering a multidisciplinary selection of 11,000+journals from around the world, this in-depth analytical tool offers data for ranking scientists, institutions, countries, and journals. This unique and comprehensive compilation of science performance statistics and science trends data is based on journal article publication counts and citation data from Thomson Reuters’ scientific databases. Available as a ten-year rolling file, ESI covers 10 million articles in 22 specific fields of research, and is updated every two months.

engines rugby season is going well

James Barber and Jack Payne

19.2.09
The Engineers Rugby team, the ‘Engines’, has enjoyed its best ever start to a season, with five wins from six games in the Newcastle University intra-mural league. The team has been strengthened by having a larger squad than ever before, including several new talented players, and the second half of the season will see the team pushing for its first ever league title.
 
The season has been hampered by terrible weather, particularly before Christmas, leading to the cancellation of several matches. Although frustrating, the games have all been rescheduled and the team have taken cancelled matches as an opportunity for more training.
 
The strong social feel about the Engines has continued and even strengthened this season, with many nights out after games with the whole team.  The highlight of the year so far has been the Christmas dinner and awards night.  Congratulations go to Andy Kirton (player of the season), Matt Whitaker (top try-scorer) and Nick Armstrong (best newcomer). The squad has also taken delivery of this season’s “stash” with warm up and training gear making the team look and feel more professional.
 
The Engines have been invited to participate in a charity rugby tournament for the second year running, arranged by Birmingham Engineers RFC. The tournament raises funds for the Matt Hampson Trust, a great cause related strongly to rugby. The team reached the final last year, and intend to return with this season’s much improved squad to go one step further. The tournament, taking place on the 14th March, will be attended by several other engineering teams from universities across the UK, with our kit providing great advertising exposure for our sponsors.
 
Thanks this season go to Tom Bramald (CEG Staff) and Ben Marshall (CEG Student) for their excellent coaching which has been of great benefit to the team (as proved by our results!). Thanks also go to our much needed sponsors, NCS Survey, Parsons Brinckerhoff and the Brandling Bar, Jesmond. Continued support from the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University, as well as T-shirts provided by ICE North East are also very much appreciated.
 
If you are a student and want to get involved in the team, or a company who is interested in sponsoring us, please feel free to contact the captains; James Barber and Jack Payne, at j.e.barber@ncl.ac.uk or j.w.payne@ncl.ac.uk

record numbers for GIS defy economic downturn

Clare Gordon

13.2.09
The Professional Development Unit for Civil Engineering and Geosciences has recorded record numbers of delegates attending GIS courses within January. The figures support the theory that the economic downturn is forcing employers and individuals to focus on training and developing skills with the realisation that transferable skills in an unstable market can be a key asset to an organisation.

This theory is supported by research from the Learning and Skills council (LSC) who found that over half of 2000 adults surveyed said that they would focus on training to improve their career prospects and job security. The CPD courses offered at the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences allow 'bite-sized' learning for individuals which for a business are more flexible and cost-effective. Professionals are becoming far more aware of the importance of continuing professional development and developing their career. Institutions are recognising this by incorporating CPD into professional qualifications and many employers have built it into appraisals.

The continuing popularity of the GIS course has prompted the development of a new Open Source GIS course. The course is still at a design stage with consultation with potential delegates. This course is one of a number of potential extensions to the range of GIS course available. Anyone interested in this type of training can express their interest to ceg.cpd@ncl.ac.uk

The 5-day GIS course was attended by national and international delegates including those from as far as Spain and Sierra Leone. Attendees came from a variety of organisations, many of which were through new links made with the University. A full list of the CPD courses available for both internal students and external organisations can be found via the link at www.ceg.ncl.ac.uk/cpd

major Antarctic ice shelf yet to succumb to climate change

Matt King

30.1.09
In the midst of regular reports of major ice loss from some regions of Antarctica, Newcastle University scientists have found a chunk of good news in the form of a floating ice shelf 3 times the area of Wales. The study shows that the Amery Ice Shelf - the floating extension of the major drainage basin in East Antarctica - has remained stable in terms of its thickness and speed over the last 4 decades. Dr Matt King, from the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, has led an international research team working with traditional geomatics measurements from the late 1960s and comparing them to modern day measurements made using GPS and satellite observations. Comparing the new observations with the old has shown that, despite some shorter-term fluctuations, the ice shelf is today moving at the same speed and has the same thickness as it did in the 1960s.

This does not mean that we can forget about Antarctica, however. Dr King says, "Antarctica may be viewed as two sleeping giants - the smaller of the giants - the West Antarctic ice sheet - is beginning to awaken, with some important regions losing ice into the oceans with worrying speed. Sea levels are rising as a result and it is not yet clear what will happen in the future. In contrast, the larger giant is twitching in a few places, but there are not yet major reasons to be concerned. The Amery Ice Shelf study demonstrates, with a level of detail without precedent in Antarctica, that this key drainage basin is also yet to be affected by any temperature changes in the ocean or atmosphere." The team plan to continue examining field and satellite observations, comparing them with those from the 1960s so they can identify when a substantial change is underway.

The paper is published online in Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JF001094.shtml

PhD trip report

Tom Holderness

29.1.09
The school of Civil Engineering and Geosciences is home to PhD students from a wide range of disciplines, situated in a number of buildings across campus. This year a group of first and second year postgraduate students, supported by the school, embarked on a one night trip in the Northumberland countryside intent on getting to know one another. Early on a Saturday morning in late November, the group travelled to the Once Brewed Youth Hostel, near Hadrian's Wall.

For the rest of the daylight hours the group explored the surrounding country, including a length of the Wall and the now famous tree featured in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Leaving the Wall just before Milecastle 37 the group headed North onto the Pennine way, aiming for Greenlee Lough. Crossing some very boggy marshland the group eventually arrived at their destination for lunch and squeezed into a bird hide where sandwiches and drinks were passed around.

Arriving back at the Youth Hostel a little before check-in there was just time for a short reconnaissance visit to the local ale-house. The day was completed with a communal feast and mulled wine (followed by further research of local brews).

On Sunday morning after breakfast there was time for one more adventure before returning to Newcastle. The Roman Fort & Museum at Vindolanda is one of the most interesting architectural excavations within the UK, featuring the famous Roman writing tablets, a form of postcard from the Roman soldiers to their families at home in Italy. The group toured the site and the museum and popped into the cafe for lunch before returning home.

The trip offered students new to Newcastle the opportunity to experience the Northumberland outdoors and provided the opportunity for students from different research areas to get to know each other. Thanks to the Head of School David Parker for supporting the group, to Martin Robertson for acting as our emergency contact and finally thanks to all those who came!

joining together to protect our ancient monuments

David Graham

27.1.09
Staff from SAGE and HASS faculties are joining together to help safeguard some of the country’s most ‘at risk’ ancient stone monuments.

Many of these monuments, such as standing stones, are found in isolated parts of the countryside.

“Despite their apparent robustness and resilience, these ancient monuments occupy a fragile place in the rural landscape where they are under continuous threat from tourism, agriculture and climate change,” explained Dr Aron Mazel, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies.

“As a consequence we urgently need to change our level of understanding of both human and environmental factors that accelerate the deterioration of these monuments.”

Dr Mazel and Professor David Graham, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, are leading a new inter-disciplinary project which will bring together environmental scientists and heritage practitioners, including those from English Heritage and Northumberland County Council.

“Cross-faculty working, although on the increase, is still quite rare,” explained Professor Graham. “With a project like this, the benefits from working with colleagues from other disciplines are immense, as we all come at it from a different perspective, which will help to bring about a more holistic solution.”

Other Newcastle University researchers involved are Dr Myra Giesen, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Dr Geoff Parkin and Professor Ian Head, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and Professor David Manning, Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability.

The research work, which will begin with a two-day workshop in early March 2009, is being funded through a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)/ Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Heritage Clusters competition.

It will involve working across the disciplines of heritage science research, incorporating geochemistry, molecular microbiology, ecology, geomorphology, botany, hydrology, archaeology and heritage management.

floods to become commonplace by 2080

Hayley Fowler

20.1.09
Flooding like that which devastated the North of England last year is set to become a common event across the UK in the next 75 years, new research has shown.

A study by Dr Hayley Fowler, of Newcastle University, predicts that severe storms – the likes of which currently occur every five to 25 years across the UK – will become more common and more severe in a matter of decades. Looking at ‘extreme rainfall events’ – where rain falls steadily and heavily for between one and five days – the study predicts how the intensity of these storms may change in the future.

Dr Fowler found that across the UK, the amount of rain falling during one of these extreme events was likely to increase by up to 30 per cent by 2080. This increase is most likely to occur in autumn, winter and spring when the ground is already saturated, posing the biggest threat of flooding. Dr Fowler, Reader in Climate Change Impacts at Newcastle, explained: “Predicting how extreme rainfall might change many years in the future is very difficult because events can be quite localised, especially in the summer.

“You only have to think about how difficult it is for the Met office to predict the weather two or three days in advance – the overall picture for the country tends to stay the same but local weather patterns can change quite dramatically. By taking a much more detailed look at the results from different regional climate models, we have created a more accurate picture of how wet Britain will be by 2070."

“What the data quite clearly shows is that we’re going to see far more of these extreme downpours in years to come, putting more and more homes at risk from flooding, particularly in autumn and winter months when the ground is already saturated.”

The research, published online today in the International Journal of Climatology, looks at changes to seasonal extreme rainfall across the UK by 2070-2100. Dr Fowler, who worked on the study with Dr Marie Ekstrom from Exeter University, examined seasonal rainfall data from 13 Regional Climate Models for nine regions across the UK and used this to study the projected changes.

Consistent with global warming, the team found that as the air becomes warmer and is able to hold more moisture, Britain will get wetter. In general, the study suggests larger changes to the intensity of short duration extreme rainfall events – those lasting one or two days. Northern and western regions of the UK are predicted to be worst hit.

Dr Fowler added: “Unfortunately, we still have least confidence in the model’s predictions for the summer months and it is still highly uncertain how summer flash flooding such as the Hull and Hereford and Worcester floods in 2007 will change. What our data does show is that floods are no longer going to be freak events. All 13 models we looked at predict increases in extreme rainfall in winter, autumn and spring by the 2080s although the percent increase varies. This has major implications for flood risk management. We need to be looking now at where we build new homes, drainage systems and water storage in order to protect our homes and businesses from flooding in the future.”

Episodes of short-term extreme rainfall – such as was seen in Morpeth in 2008 – are predicted to increase in intensity by between 15 and 30 per cent. In winter, one day downpours are predicted to increase in intensity in all regions with Scotland and northern England seeing changes of more than 20 per cent. Smaller increases are projected for southern regions, particularly south-east England. In autumn, some regional climate models project potentially very large increases in extreme rainfall, with a rise of up to 60 per cent in some regions such as north-west England.

north east smartcard conference

Gareth Evans

20.1.09
TORG, jointly with Nexus and the Association of North East Councils, have formed a partnership to promote the development of smart travel tickets for Tyne and Wear and ultimately the NE region. A kick-off event to engage stakeholders from the region was held on the 14 January 2009 and was hosted at the Stadium of Light, home of Sunderland AFC.

The event was chaired by Professor Phil Blythe, who has been involved in smartcard research and the deployment of smartcards in National and European projects for almost 20 years. The event was also supported by the three national bus operators who serve the North East - Arriva, Stagecoach and GoAhead - and was designed to understand what opportunities smartcards and smart-ticketing could bring to transport in the region, the existing barriers to implementing a scheme and potential
solutions to overcoming these barriers. Presentations were given from a diverse range of stakeholders,
incorporating the views of Local Authorities, Nexus, transport consultancies, the Department for Transport, bus operators and user groups into the discussion. A number of interesting case studies were
presented from a national and international perspective, outlining how existing smartcard schemes have been successful but also highlighted the dangers of "trying to do too much too soon".

The day was very successful and well received by all. The concluding message from the event is that the time is now right for smartcards and smart-ticketing to be introduced in the North East. The reinvigoration
of the Metro system has provided the region with the ideal opportunity to develop ideas and plans into a working system, the technology exists and has been proven across the world, and so the next two-to-four years will be a very exciting time for smartcards in the North East as Nexus begin to put their proposals into action... the first thing to do is to decide on a suitable name!