New Centre of Excellence opens in Liverpool on 23rd June

24 June 2004

A world leading centre for marine research, the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, moves to a £5m, purpose built site on the University of Liverpool campus this week.

Scientists at the new laboratory, originally housed in Bidston Observatory on the Wirral, will research and monitor the storm surges responsible for flooding, global sea level rises, oil spill movements and the dispersal of pollutants. The laboratory is responsible gathering the data that regulates the rising and lowering of the Thames Barrier and hosts the British Oceanographic Data Centre, one of the world's largest and most important libraries of ocean data.

The director of the laboratory, Professor Ed Hill, wants the move to encourage communication across academic disciplines - from oceanography to engineering, biology, medicine and social sciences.

"This move will open up new opportunities for better scientific collaboration. Being located on the campus of one of the UK's top universities will provide just the right environment needed to maintain our world-class research strength well in to the future."

"Research from our centre will improve understanding of long term sea level change, a major, global problem. Our science will help engineers and politicians develop strategies to deal with these issues."

The Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory is part of the Natural Environment Research Council whose Chief Executive, Professor John Lawton, is keen to support this area of research.

"It is vital we support our scientists and give them access to the best equipment and facilities."

Professor Lawton believes the centre will play an important role in Britain's understanding and monitoring of climate change.

"Climate change is a reality. We know for a fact that sea levels are rising and this has enormous implications for people living along the coast of Britain. But it isn't just those people who need to worry. Rising sea levels will have a major effect on the economy of Britain."

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, Professor Drummond Bone said "The relocation of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory to the University of Liverpool provides an exciting opportunity to expand research activity in the Department of Earth and Ocean Science and help integrate related work across the University.

"The presence of a Research Council on campus is a stimulating development. The combined expertise of staff at the University and the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in this joint venture will create new impetus to ocean science research in Liverpool.

"The University's undergraduate and postgraduate students will also benefit from the addition of Proudman's expertise. The Proudman staff will take an active role in teaching and learning, particularly in the supervision of research projects in Ocean and Earth Sciences at BSc, MPhil and PhD levels. Students from the University and the rest of the region will also have the opportunity to take part in new short courses and summer schools at the Laboratory."

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411561
Mob: 07917 557215

Notes

1. The opening ceremony for the Joseph Proudman Building will take place at 2 pm, 23 June (6 Brownlow Street, Liverpool). Refreshments will be available beforehand. A tour of the new building will follow the opening ceremony.

2. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) uses a budget of about £300m a year to fund and carry out impartial scientific research in the sciences of the environment. It is addressing some of the key questions facing mankind such as global warming, renewable energy and sustainable economic development.

3. The University of Liverpool is one of the UK's leading research institutions with a prodigious spread of expertise - from the humanities and social sciences to engineering, science, veterinary science and medicine. It attracts collaborative and contract research commissions from a wide range of national and international organisations - commissions valued at more than £80m annually.

4. The Bidston Observatory has a long history weather observation, tidal predication, astronomy and ships signalling. The observatory, built in 1866, has an unbroken series of met records dating back to 1867. Joseph Proudman founded the Liverpool Tidal Institute, based at the university, in 1919. In 1929 the Tidal Institute relocated to Bidston Observatory with Proudman as its first director. In 1969 the institute was taken over by the Natural Environment Research Council. Professor Hill has been the director of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory since 1999.

5. Global-average sea level is believed to have risen by between 10-20 cm during the past century and best estimates are that it will rise by approximately 50 cm in the next 100 years. Rising sea levels are largely a consequence of the thermal expansion of the ocean, melting of low latitude glaciers (Alps, Rockies etc.) and many other factors, each of which are reviewed every few years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

6. The laboratory's main research involves coastal oceanography, examining coastal sediment transport and numerical modelling of coastal waters. Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory's three main programmes are:

Programme 1

Determine how climate models of sea level changes agree with actual measurements.

See how climate change will affect extremes in sea level and waves on time-scales from hours to centuries.

Develop techniques for continuously monitoring sea level, bottom pressure and related variables at important ocean locations, to improve our understanding of ocean circulation, global climate and sea level change.

Programme 2

Determine how natural events and man-made changes affect our coastal waters.

Take measurements of the sea bed, currents and suspended particles to work out how these interact.

Programme 3

Improve computer models of coastal regions

7. Examples of Proudman projects.

Oceanography from space.
The Proudman Oceanographic laboratory will make use of state-of-the-art satellite technology. Satellite technology has completely changed our view of the global oceans. For the first time, it has been possible to make global measurements without waiting for the years it would take a ship to travel the same distance. Satellites measure a variety of things, including ocean surface temperature and colour (related to the kind and concentration of phytoplankton present in the surface layer). For those studying ocean currents though, satellite altimetry is the most important technology.

Storm Surge Modelling.
The Proudman Oceanography Laboratory has developed a 12km grid model of the coast of Europe that predicts storm surges and subsequent coastal flooding. The model is currently run on the Met Office computer where they add input from meteorological models. The subsequent outputs if predicting flooding are made known to the Environment Agency who issue the official flood warnings.

MYRTLE - Multi Year Return Tidal Equipment.
A mission is to send back sea level and temperature information from the deep ocean over a period of five years. Each year a Benthos glass sphere is automatically released from a frame on the seabed, a central data logger pumps the data simultaneously into all the spheres. In the fifth year, the frame, data logger and sensors can be released from the seabed, recovering the equipment and the whole five-year data set.

Press release: 17/04

New Centre of Excellence opens in Liverpool on 23rd June

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