Last week, Sylvia Knight from the Royal Meteorological Society gave a talk for Geography education online on the Weather of 2020.
This year it felt like we had summer weather in Spring and Autumn weather in Summer. In this session, we examine the global processes that determine the weather in the UK, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on weather and climate around the world.
The talk is aimed at A Level students, but would also be useful CPD for geography teachers or for younger students who have already covered a weather topic.
Category: Geography
In a paper that came out in the journal Nature Communications, Self-amplified Amazon forest loss due to vegetation-atmosphere feedbacks, scientists revealed that deforestation can intensify droughts, compounding climate change linked changes in rainfall patterns.
Using data collected by scientists in the School of Earth and the Environment at the University of Leeds, we have created a data skills exercise for A Level geography which allows students to explore leaf area, evapotranspiration and temperature data using various statistical techniques to explore the relationship between deforestation and weather.
With clear links to both the carbon and water cycles, you can find the resources here.
Over the weekend, we saw Arctic Maritime air descend over the UK, with temperatures dropping by around 10C.
The following snapshot from http://earth.nullschool.net from the morning of Monday 11th May, shows winds blowing clockwise around a High pressure area to the northwest of the UK. This means a northerly air flow over much of the UK, swinging round to easterlies over southern counties.
We can see in these charts from the preceding weekend how the polar front (shown as a cold front) swept down across the UK. This first chart shows 6am on Sunday 10th May, with the cold air over Scotland, Northern Ireland and some of northern England.
The second chart shows midnight on Monday 11th May – cold air now covers the whole of the UK.
Observations show the temperatures plummeting as the cold front passed, moving us into Arctic maritime air – these observations are from Reading University’s weather station, showing both a week and a 2 day view:
Temperatures clearly drop from around 19C on Sunday morning to 12C by lunchtime, and below 5C overnight. This temperature drop was later further south in the country, and earlier further north. The following graph corresponds to the same time period as the Reading data, but shows data from the Whitworth observatory in Manchester (with thanks to Michael Flynn):
The northerly winds, funnelling surface waters down the North Sea, came at the same time as a Spring tide – the following image is taken from tidetimes and shows the tide height at Whitby. Spring tides are marked by a greater tidal range – higher high tides, and lower low tides.
This led to extremely high tides – and the Thames Barrier was closed overnight to protect London from flooding. A flood alert was issued by the Environment Agency for the South Devon coast.
To make this case study memorable for students, it could be linked to Boris Johnson’s speech at 7pm (18UTC) on the evening of Sunday 10th.
We’ve pulled all our contour drawing resources into one place, and made a short video guide to drawing contours onto maps.
Several recent research papers have investigated the impact of rainforest deforestation on local rainfall and temperature.
Find some teaching resources linked to the animation above here.
We are delighted to have produced some resources about collecting and using weather measurements for the A Level geography independent investigation (Non-examined Assessment – NEA) which can be found as part of a more general Student’s Guide on the RGS website.
Students are able to borrow weather instruments free of charge from the Society for the NEA – more information here.
Categories
Tree Ring Resources
We were delighted to launch our past weather and climate teaching resources at the Geographical Association’s meeting in Manchester last week.
You can find the introductory film, online game and teaching resources here
We’ll add more background information and some instructions about how to make a replica of the amazing tree ring jigsaw in lego or even by 3D printing it, shortly.
The Society’s Climate Change Negotiations for Schools Resource – ‘Simulating a World Climate Conference’ – has been recognized and ‘Highly Commended’ at the SAGT Conference Awards 2018 hosted by Dollar Academy. Morven Neil, RMetS Scottish Education Representative was in attendance at the conference to receive the award and to run a number of seminars that gave conference attendees the opportunity to trial the resource. In these seminars, a number of Geography teachers from across Scotland worked together in designated country groups to decide their own greenhouse gas emission pledges, deliver these to the other assembled delegates and then negotiate. Despite some intense negotiation, they were not able to commit to emission reductions which would limit global temperature increases to within the recommended threshold, but will hopefully leave equipped to confidently deliver the resource in their own classrooms.
Categories
Water Cycle Film
We are delighted to have produced this short video illustrating how deforestation has an impact on the water cycle, both locally and globally. Bringing together the carbon and water cycles, it is particularly relevant to A level geography (and GCSE biology).
We have worked hard over the summer to update and improve our resources for KS3 geography, making them more relevant to the new(ish) National Curriculum.
You can find the new suggestions for a weather and climate scheme of work at metlink.org/secondary/key-stage-3/. It includes a number of engaging, interactive lesson ideas.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact us at education@rmets.org