EScience at The University of Nottingham

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E-Science at The University of Nottingham

• The benefit to environmental science in Antarctica

School of Life and Environmental Sciences
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Why Study Antarctic Lakes?

• Isolated low mammalian impact
• Ice cover reduces mixing
• Few species simple trophic dynamics
• Survival in harsh environment adaptation of
  plankton
• Fragile ecosystem
• Sensitive to global change?

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The Vestfold Hills
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Problems with field studies in Antarctica

• Weather
• Access to remote areas - helicopters
• Danger of ice break-up
• Sampling only in daytime
• Results in sparse data at irregular times
• Not enough data to represent timescales of
  important phenomena

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Manual sampling
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Remotesensingprobe

• Solar powered
• Satellite link-up
• Regular measurements
• - every 5 minutes
• - 24 hours a day

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Large amounts of data..
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Small-scale phenomenaobservable
Cloudy day
Clear day
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Potential benefits of the GRID

• Easy storage of and access to large datasets,
  e.g. meteorological data
• Communication with remote areas
• Access to new visualisation tools
• Remote use of high-speed computers
• Automatic model optimisation?

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Potential for modelling
Remote probe
Manual sampling
Model
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E-Science in General

• Improving communication
• Sharing data
• Cross-discipline co-operation
• Providing students with inter-disciplinary
  transferable skills
• More efficient research!