Air pollution at gas well site rises despite lack of fracking
Air quality monitoring near the Kirby Misperton gas well, conducted by NCAS and BGS scientists, has found that although full fracking never took place, the preoperational part of the development led to some air pollutants increasing in the vicinity of the rural site to levels more commonly seen in a city.
Professor Ally Lewis, NCAS Director of Science and Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of York, explains that the cause was the large number of lorry movements needed to supply and maintain equipment, plus diesel generators and compressors.
Improving forecasts of high-impact weather in Africa
The GCRF African SWIFT programme aims to better understand weather systems over Africa, and to improve the forecasting of high impact weather events such as urban flooding or prolonged droughts.
This month sees SWIFT partners Kenyan Meteorological Department (KMD) host the first forecasting testbed (24-29 January 2019) - a way to bring together teams of SWIFT researchers and operational forecasters from East and West Africa and the UK to develop more accurate and timely weather forecasts for Africa.
The testbed will also provide support to the HyVic flight campaign over Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, using FAAM’s world-class research aircraft and expertise from SWIFT, NCAS, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the Ugandan National Meteorological Authority, and the HIGHWAY project.
Reach for the skies on the Isle of Arran
The NCAS Atmospheric Measurement Summer School focuses on the core skills researchers need to achieve excellence in practical fieldwork.
Watch our short video to find out from activity leaders, scientists and students what it's really like to be enrolled on this course.