Resonate Late: Whatever the Weather

4 Mar

For our first event of the Resonate Festival of Science and Technology, we spent the evening with four Warwick researchers who all study the Weather in different ways.

Here at Resonate, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use our extra day of the year, the 29th February 2024, to hold another one of our exciting evening events. We headed to 1 Mill Street in Leamington Spa to launch the Resonate Festival of Science and Technology 2024.

First up, we had Dr Camilla Audia (Department of Global Sustainable Development) discussing an incredible project about the knowledge of weather held by rural communities in Burkina Faso. By examining local methods for reading the weather, Camilla opened up a conversation about weather forecasting, the impact of climate on developing countries and the relationship between the scientific and the indigenous.

Professor Eric Holub (Live Sciences) had us considering where our food comes from, and how this complex system is impacted by extreme weather conditions, such as torrential rain. Eric introduced us to three new beans that have been developed to grow in the UK, the farmers who are generating these crops and the weather-related challenges they are facing.

After a short break, Dr Richard Everitt (Department of Statistics) had us predicting football scores to help us understand probability. We used these newfound skills to discover how weather models are used to generate weather forecasting. That little ‘50% chance of rain’ on our weather app now makes a little more sense!

Finally, Dr Ravindra Desai (Department of Physics) took us out of this world as we explored space weather. Incredible images and videos helped us visualise how space weather occurs and then we considered the impacts this has had on planet Earth. From beautiful aurora borealis to potentially catastrophic impacts on telecommunications, we came away with a newfound understanding of space weather.

We had an excellent night, propelled by incredible questions from our audience.

The Resonate Festival of Science and Technology 2024 is well and truly under way! Our next event is taking place on Thursday 7th March. Find out more here.