As a child I grew up in a BBC Radio 4 household. People who know me well might say that this explains a lot, certainly it is probably responsible for the way I talk… Nowadays, with a busy life and a home life that seems to generally involve people rushing about here and there, I never seem to find the time to listen to Radio 4 and this is something that I often wish was not the case because Radio 4 is the home of a huge amount of interesting, funny and informative material. One particularly good programme is “The Material World”, a weekly half-hour offering on science. The format is generally the same – there are two items each getting roughly half of the air-time during which the presenter, usually Quentin Cooper, talks to one or more scientists, engineers or similar beings about a topical issue or piece of work.
Fortunately for people like me who never manage to listen to the radio at home, “The Material World” has its own web-page from which it is possible to listen online to past episodes. It is also possible to download episodes as podcasts (e.g. via iTunes). This is great because not only can you listen to past episodes that look interesting, but you can do so whenever you want! Now that I have set this web-site up I will write about episodes that I think are of particular relevance to oceanography and meteorology as and when they occur, but to start things off I thought I would provide a list of some of the past episodes that I might have included in this way if this site was already up and running. I don’ty pretend to have listened to all of these but they are all episodes that judging by the blurb should be of interest to anyone interested in marine and atmsopheric science. Please be aware that each time you click on one of the links the page for that episode will open in a new window. You can then listen to the episode by clicking on the Listen Again link provided. If any of the links are incorrect or broken please let me know so that I can correct or remove them.
From 2005: air pollution – trees and climate change – coastal wind jets
From 2006: ghost ship – Thames barrier – artifical gills – deep sea fish – gas hydrates – mega plumes – forecasting evolving coastlines(1) – Antarctic Science – solar energy – stratospheric broadband – a new look at the sun – sediment analysis and charting the ocean’s organisms – data logging animals
From 2007: the Thames whale – Scapa Flow – international polar year – El Nino – managing uncertainty in complex models – flood warning – seaside bouquet – Sumatran earthquakes – Arctic sea ice – fish stock extinction – algae(2)
From 2008: deep tropical ocean kelvin waves(3) – plate tectonics – Severn barrage – predicting natural disasters – seaweed and iodine – ocean acidification(4) – the secret seeds of clouds – subglacial lakes – seawater greenhouses – lobster hotels – the deep carbon cycle
(1) featuring my PhD supervisor Professor Alan Davies from Bangor University
(2) featuring Professor Peter Liss from the University of East Anglia, former President and current fellow-Council member of the Challenger Society for Marine Science
(3) featuring Professor Karen Heywood from the University of East Anglia, a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University when I was taking my MSc and PhD there
(4) featuring Dr Jason Hall-Spencer from the University of Plymouth
Tim O'Hare 