For the love of weather

In this episode of For the Love of Weather, Gemma and Aisling are joined by renowned meteorologist and climate communicator Bernadette Woods Placky. At the time of recording Bernadette was the Chief Meteorologist and Climate Matters Director at Climate Central. She has since moved on to a new role. Bernadette shares her journey from studying meteorology at Penn State to becoming an Emmy Award-winning TV meteorologist and the first female meteorologist in Baltimore station history. Bernadette tells us how conversations about the weather are as much a national pastime in the US as it is here. The discussion dives into Climate Central's groundbreaking work on climate attribution science, helping people understand how climate change is influencing the weather events happening around them right now. We cover quite a lot of other topics including ❄️ Forecasting snow is rarely straightforward, even in regions where snow is common. 🌪️Tornadoes ⛅Favourite clouds 🌡️Dew point often tells us far more about how weather feels than relative humidity. 🌍 Communication is a climate solution. 🌡️ Attribution science now allows scientists to quantify how climate change influences individual weather events. 📈 Climate solutions are advancing rapidly, but progress still needs to accelerate. 🗣️ Everyone has a voice and can contribute to climate conversations and action. We learned a lot from our chat with Bernadette. She is doing tremendous work in helping to educate as well as shaping conversations around weather and climate. You can find Bernadette on LinkedIn ‘Bernadette Woods Placky’ as well as on instagram. If you want to hear a little more weather and climate chat - please hit subscribe, like and share with a friend. You can follow us on social media - @fortheloveofweather You can subscribe on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ForTheLoveOfWeather Resources Mentioned https://www.climatecentral.org/ https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-shift-index https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/ https://www.met.psu.edu/

In this episode we chat to Alice Stevens, creator of welly walks. These are bright yellow tech wellies that people can walk around in. Depending on the weather, the wellies would say different poems, sensing the weather with low tech barometric sensors to understand the weather at the moment. She is also the creator of rain trail which uses paint to reveal illustrations that would only appear if it rained. She has many more projects in the pipeline such as ‘blissful rain, isinit?’, a dialogue around using positive language around rain.Alice is a Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design at Arts University Bournemouth and is currently doing a PhD in the intersection of British Weather, Creative Practice and Ecolinguisitics. This is a field of language that studies that explores the relationship between language, human societies, and the natural environment and says that if we hide away in building we lose connection and conversation about the weather and climate. She leaves us with some poignant thoughts about the importance of using positive language around the environment, for example talking about 'blissful rain'. She is working on a new installation ‘WeatherKin’ that will be used in bus shelters that shares other people positive memories of rains. You can find Alice on LinkedIn https://uk.linkedin.com/in/alice-stevens-222667a0. We really hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast, and leave loving the weather just a little bit more.If you want to hear a little more weather and climate chat - please hit subscribe, like and share with a friend.You can follow us on Instagram @fortheloveofweather and on X and BlueSky @4loveofweather.You can subscribe on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ForTheLoveOfWeather

For the love of weather podcast is back with a new series. This first podcast is a hero-gram to climate scientist Prof Ed Hawkins.Climate scientist Professor Ed Hawkins is an expert in climate change communications. Ed was surprised when his visualisation of a warming world burst into life when his climate stripes #showyourstripes were used in the 2016 Rio Olympics.#showyourstripws is a simple and unique way of using colour to visualising climate change through warmth and colour.One of Ed’s many climate projects was undertaken in 2020 when he set up a project to transcribe and digitise millions of paper rainfall observations. This was undertaken by thousands of volunteers, the results of which would feed into and ultimately make climate models more accurate.It was a project he thought would take a very long time to complete, but with the help of lots of volunteers they managed to complete it in just 16 days; the results have been phenomenal.Ed chats about his brilliant ‘warming stripes’ - #showyouratripes , which are a simple and unique way to breakdown complex science into simple colours to highlight a warming world and an incredible strength of spirit to keep going to find new ways to tell the story of climate change - a story he cared about deeply.The warming stripes are available for lots of countries and cities around the world and you can find them here - https://showyourstripes.info/We really hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast, and leave loving the weather just a little bit more.If you want to hear a little more weather and climate chat - please hit subscribe, like and share with a friend.You can follow us on social media - @fortheloveofweatherYou can subscribe on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ForTheLoveOfWeatherYou can find Ed on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edhawkinsclimate/?originalSubdomain=ukand on Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/edhawkins.org

In this episode we chat to the brilliant Sarah Kent - a meteorologist and founder of Wild Soul Coaching.Sarah lives on a narrow boat and has done so for the past 2 years, navigating UK waterways. Her curiosity about the world around her as a child led her to science but she bas always had the soul of a philosopher.We get a practical insight into life on a boat and how being a meteorologist comes in handy. But we also learn about what really means to live a sustainable life and to be in each moment of a day. Through her coaching Sarah empowers women to live extraordinary lives, and to make decisions that put positive ripples out into the world. In this episode she also reminds us that time is precious.If you would like to find out more about Sarah's business Wild Soul Coaching you can find her at https://www.sarahlkent.com/You can follow us on Instagram @fortheloveofweather and on X @4loveofweather. We really hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast and leave loving the weather a little bit more.

We were thrilled to return to the Blue Earth Summit 2024 this time in London. Please check out our instagram feed @fortheloveofweather to get a flavour of what we got up to. We captured and shared as many speakers and guests as we could and yet again we were blown away by the amazing conversations we had and most importantly people’s willingness to give us their time to talk about what they were passionate about.The Blue Earth Summit is held over 3 days and plays host to 5,000+ decision makers, industry pioneers, provocative thought-leaders, sustainability trailblazers, insightful solutionists and boundary-pushing start ups. It’s the place to explore, meet, learn, collaborate and take action.In this episode of the podcast we speak to three inspiring individuals.Nicole van der Velden - Sailor for the Spain SailGP team Gemma Metheringham - PhD student and found of @the_elephant_in_my_wardrobeCoco Peuscet - Marketing manager at Reskinned. Our first guest is Nicole van der Velden, who is a Spanish-Aruban sailor. She tells us all about SailGP. Not only are they reducing their carbon footprint, but they are pushing boundaries in gender equality in sailing. If you have never seen SailGP, it is like formula 1 but on water. It is such an exciting sport and it was a geniune joy to talk to Nicole. Her enthusiasm is infectious! You can find Nicole on socials at @nicolevelden. Our second gues is Gemma Metheringham aka @the_elephant_in_my_wardrobe . She is now a PhD student at Nottinham Trent and her passion is to understand whether the growing second hand market can be a lever that decarbonises mainstream fashion. Gemma talks us through the psychology and value we place on second hand clothes. It really was a fascinating chat about what the term 'valuable' means. How do we feel about clothes if we know the story behind them or if we can see and try them on versus buying on line. Gemma was inspiring and thought provoking and we can't wait to see how this journey goes for her. Our final conversation in this podcast is with Coco Peuscet, who is the marketing manager at 'Reskinned'. This conversation absolutely got our heads in a spin! If you didn't know anything about new fashion, your jaw will drop when you find out what happens to most of the clothes that we send back to our well known brands. Although Coco sees the reality of what happens to clothes we send back she was full of top tips and really useful information that is easy for all of us to do. Small things all add up to make a big difference. You can find Coco Peuscet on LinkedIn

Meet Zoë Johnson, meteorologist, journalist and author. She released her first book this year as a co-author of the Weather Almanac 2025.Zoë joined forces with Storm Dunlop who is an astronomy and meteorology author, to write this next almanac. This is a continuation of the series with the publishers Harper Collins.In our chat with Zoë, she tells us she can’t remember a time when she didn’t love the weather. She talks us through the journey of becoming a meteorologist at Weather Quest to then becoming the BBC Look East COP26 Climate reporter and how this led on to her current career in journalism to then becoming an author.Listen on if you want to learn more about the last frost fair in London, Joanne Simpson - the first woman to get a PhD in meteorology, which Dr. Who is Zoë’s favourite and what is the best colour banana to eat.If you would like to contact Zoë you can find her on all socials on @zoejweather.You can follow us on Instagram @fortheloveofweather and on X @4loveofweather.We really hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast and leave loving the weather a little bit more.

At the start of July 2024 we took the podcast to the Royal Meteorological Society’s first ever weather and climate conference. Over the two days we were lucky to be able to speak to lots of amazing scientists and attend some brilliant talks. While there we also got a chance to talk to three brilliant scientists in a series of mini podcasts, which we have put together in this special episode. Our first guest is Amanda Maycock, who is a professor of climate dynamics at the University of Leeds. We spoke to Amanda about how she got into academia, how she communicates complex subjects to her students as well as women in science. Next, we spoke to Professor Myles Allen, who is the head of atmospheric, oceanic and planetary physics in the department of physics at the University of Oxford. As well as professor of geosystem science in the school of geography and the environment. We spoke to Myles about attribution studies, which are a way of looking at how climate change is impacting weather events. Finally, we got the opportunity to speak to Professor Penny Endersby, who is the Chief Executive of the Met Office. In this conversation with Penny, we learnt about what the Met Office does as well as about AI and the potential ways it could be used in weather forecasting. If you want to learn more about the conference, there is lots of content on our social platforms.Instagram: @fortheloveofweatherX: @4loveofweather You can also find out more on the Royal Meteorological Society’s website, where you can also learn more about what the society does.https://www.rmets.org/ We really hope you enjoy this episode and leave loving the weather just a little bit more.

Meet Georgina and Rebecca, the Antarctic Fire Angels. In January 2024 they pioneered a new route across the Antarctic while skiing unsupported from Union Glacier to the South Pole. The journey took 52 days, 10 hours and 30 minutes.Four years ago Georgina and Rebecca didn’t know each other but they were at the same National Fire Service Conference. That year Sophie Montagne gave the keynote speech. Sophie is the world record holder for Ice Maiden, the first female team to ski across the Antarctic.A five minute conversation with Sophie after the speech was the beginning of what was to become an incredible friendship between Georgina and Rebecca that led on to them completing this epic 1230km journey across the coldest place on earth.Hold your breath while you learn about the terrifying noise of ice crevasses, the silence that can exist in the Antarctic and what it is like to be engulfed in a white-out. What is it like to experience temperatures of minus 41 degrees? climb altitudes of over 4000 metres? And try to keep up with an 8000 calories a day schedule to stay alive.They are now building the Fire Angel Foundation, which will see female fire cadets and girl guides embark on a three month program. This program will culminate in a mini expedition to Sweden where they will build self esteem, confidence and learn to support each other during times of adversity.Not only are Georgina and Rebecca championing incredibly feats of human stamina and endurance but they are truly champions of change for women and girls, carving out a wide and deep path to facilitate that.From start to finish this is an inspiring podcast. It is a story of the human spirit, mental strength and the strength of most importantly a story of friendship.If you would like to learn more about The Antarctic Fire Angels you can find them here:https://antarcticfireangels.co.uk/X - @antarctic_fireInstagram - antarcticfireangelsYou can find their documentary on ITVX - 'Fire & Ice: The Antarctic Fire Angels' https://www.itv.com/walesprogrammes/articles/fire-and-ice-the-antarctic-fire-angelsTheir next adventure is called ‘777’, seven marathons, 7 continents in 7 days. We can’t wait!!And as always you can follow the podcast on ‘X’ we are @4loveofweather and on Instagram @fortheloveofweather.Thanks so much for listening and supporting the podcast, and we hope you leave this episode loving the weather just a little bit more.