Inaugural Lecture of Professor Jonathan Sharples & Professor Chris Hughes

We are pleased to invite you to the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre for the Joint Inaugural lecture of Professor Jonathan Sharples and Professor Chris Hughes.

• Details are: Guest Arrival from 5:30pm
• Jonathan’s lecture starts at 6pm – 6:45pm
• Comfort break 6:45-7:00pm
• Chris’s lecture from 7:00pm -7:45pm
• Drinks reception from 7:45pm – 8:40pm

Jonathan Sharples, Professor of Oceanography, University of Liverpool

Physics, Plankton and Climate: from Liverpool Bay to the Global Ocean
Jonathan will begin with his earliest maritime experience of Liverpool, and then chart his way from his PhD work in Liverpool Bay through to his most recent research over the mid Atlantic Ridge. This will be a story about chasing the “background” mixing in the ocean – low levels of turbulence well below the sea surface that are fundamental to the growth of plankton and their role in Earth’s climate. What process governs where this background turbulence occurs? How does it affect the growth rates and types of plankton? And what might change in a rapidly warming climate?

Chris Hughes, Professor of Sea Level Science, University of Liverpool

Space, time and the oceans
Chris will describe a view of the oceans which is closer to an understanding of orbiting planets and moons than to our everyday experience of fluids. This is a journey from the 17th century to the future possibility of exploiting quantum mechanics and general relativity to measure the ocean circulation, with Liverpool playing a significant role at many points. He will describe the very strange kinds of waves that determine how the global ocean responds to winds, and how sea level, and a kind of “underwater sea level” provides a way to understand the ocean’s role in the climate system. He will finish with a vision of a method to condense the vast complication of the ocean to a simple, comprehensible system by focusing on its boundaries.

Following the Lectures of Jonathan and Chris, there will be a drinks reception in the foyer of the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre.

Host or Publisher School of Environmental Sciences