BlueSkiesResearch.org.uk: Blue skies at the UKMO Hadley Centre

I’ve just had a very enjoyable visit to the UKMO Hadley Centre, courtesy of Richard Betts. My talk was similar to the one I recently gave in Japan, which had been a bit clunky and unrehearsed in parts, so in the intervening weeks I revised it a bit which I think/hope made it a bit more coherent. Some of it was old stuff about single model vs multi-model ensembles (including work done ages ago in collaboration with UKMO people, in fact), and some was on model evaluation via paleoclimate simulations. I’ll not put the slides up online yet as this includes some unpublished work that I’m just a minor author on and which is under revision as I type. The last, still relatively unpolished, part of the talk concerned the thorny topic of model independence. I think I’ve now finally reached the point at which I’ve got enough material to write a paper on this. I’ve not usually worked this way round, but it seems that forcing oneself to put down thoughts sufficient to support a presentation can be a helpful way to kickstart the writing process. I had fun giving the talk, and judging from the questions after, many of the impressively large audience stayed awake. The sun shone, so the UKMO building was particularly shiny and spectacular. I really like the design – easily the best science lab I’ve visited in that respect, though the open-plan interior arrangement is another matter. I didn’t dare take a picture – would probably have been carried away in an orange jump-suit if I had – so you’ll have to make do with this much better one off the web (borrowed from here). We rounded things off with a lovely pub lunch with Richard, @dougmcneall and one other who despite our encouragement is still shying away from social media :-) The Virgin Cross-country train (direct from Leeds) is not the most comfortable way to travel ("airline" seats seems a bit of poetic license), but it did get the job done. The grim north is not so remote after all! Now we’ve got a month at home to do some work, before the next set of trips kicks off.