NOC News Round Up - 9 December 2016

First global wind speed data open new prospects for weather monitoring and forecasting The NOC has developed the first ever global wind speed products based on reflected GPS signals, using data from the UK TechDemoSat-1 satellite. This demonstrates the potential of this technique to improve sampling of ocean surface winds, as well as improve weather monitoring and forecasting by complementing existing satellite measurements from scatterometers and radiometers. Christine Gommenginger, who leads the research team at the NOC, says: "These latest results with TechDemoSat-1 are truly remarkable since they clearly demonstrate the capabilities of spaceborne GNSS-Reflectometry for global ocean wind monitoring, even in hurricane conditions. This bodes well for the forthcoming NASA CYGNSS mission, which will use the same technique to observe winds in hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons with unprecedented spatial and temporal sampling". Read more. NOC science informs the new mathmatics exhibition in the Science Musum The new mathematics gallery at the Science Museum is designed to show how maths can be applied in everyday life. One of ithe themed sections focuses on oceanography, in particular the prediction of tides and storm surges. The exhibition includes an interactive video interview with Chris Wilson and Liz Bradshaw discussing how they use maths every day in the course of their work at the NOC and BODC. After previewing the exhibition, Liz Bradshaw said, "Maths underpins everything we do as data scientists. For example, producing tidal analyses uses Fourier analysis and calculating tidal residuals is basic arithmetic. I'm really excited to be a very small part of this amazing gallery, which will hopefully show people how important maths is and why it shouldn't be thought of as a dry, abstract subject". NOC at CommOCEAN 2016 This week saw the 2nd international marine science communications conference held in Bruges. CommOCEAN attracted over 200 delegates from 29 different countries for two days of presentations and workshops for science communicators. As a member of the European Marine Board Communications Panel, NOC's Head of Communications, Lucy Calvert, chaired one of the sessions and also ran a workshop focusing on digital communications along with Senior Communications Officer, Lauren Noakes. The pair also presented during the event, giving talks about the NOC's approach to making outreach easy and making sure science engineering is as well promoted as scientific discoveries. Following the conference the European Marine Board Communications Panel met at the EMB offices in Ostende, to discuss future plans for commOCEAN and initiatives to support the work of the European Marine Board. And finally... The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that www.noc.ac.uk has undergone a makeover. There will be lots more evolution to come, but we do hope you like the new look (especially if you are viewing on a mobile device). If you have links from any of your digital channels to noc.ac.uk, they will still work, but you should check any links to deeper pages, as they will have moved. It was a massive undertaking, so if you do spot something we've missed please do email webproject@noc.ac.uk and let us know.   This email was sent to mantiskhiralla@gmail.com using GovDelivery, on behalf of: National Oceanography Centre · Waterfront Campus · European Way · Southampton · SO14 3ZH · United Kingdom Manage Preferences  |  Unsubscribe  |  Help  |  Contact Us