Parts Of Southern England Research Articles

Findings of tornado site investigations undertaken following damage during Storm Ciarán on 1–2 November 2023

AbstractOn 1‐2 November 2023, Storm Ciarán impacted the British Isles, causing widespread wind damage and significant disruption to the Channel Islands and parts of southern England. Three areas within this wider swathe ‐ Jersey (Channel Islands), Loders in Dorset and Sompting/Lancing in West Sussex ‐ suffered additional, more severe, localised wind damage. These areas were investigated by the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO). Each of these sites was found to have been affected by a tornado. The most intense of these was in Jersey, where one of the strongest tornadoes in the UK and Channel Islands since 1954 occurred.

The lithostratigraphical context of the English Chalk Rock (Turonian)

Correlations of borehole geophysical logs in the middle and upper Turonian Chalk Group are used to consider recent proposals for a revision in understanding of a unit of hardgrounds (Chalk Rock) and associated stratigraphy developed across parts of southern England. Along the northern edge of the London and Wessex basins, geophysical logs reveal a laterally continuous framework of correlatable inflection patterns in the New Pit Chalk, with the package of sediment immediately below the Chalk Rock showing a trend of lateral thinning and increasingly condensed sedimentation westwards into areas where the oldest of the Chalk Rock Hardgrounds (Ogbourne Hardground) is present. However, apart from local absence of the Glynde Marls Complex near the top of the New Pit Chalk, there is no evidence for the presence of a major erosion event. This questions recent interpretations of microcrinoid data, reportedly showing that the Ogbourne Hardground lithifies a stratigraphical level in the lower part of the New Pit Chalk, with the middle and upper parts of this unit corresponding with a hiatus and related short-lived globally significant sea level fall. Macrofossil biostratigraphy supports the geophysical log interpretations, with evidence of both younger and older parts of the New Pit Chalk below the Ogbourne Hardground. The data are consistent with the Ogbourne Hardground in Wiltshire and Berkshire representing a highly condensed equivalent of thickened nodular chalk fabrics at the base of the Lewes Nodular Chalk in the eastern Chilterns.

Readiness for five digital technologies in general practice: perceptions of staff in one part of southern England

BackgroundOur aim was to understand how digital readiness within general practice varies between different technologies and to identify how demographic, workplace and external factors affect this. The technologies considered include...

What about the South? A case study of soccer’s early development in Winchester

ABSTRACTThe historiography of soccer’s early years includes numerous references to the game’s development within the industrial heartlands of nineteenth-century Britain. But there are few studies of how soccer came to be established as a popular sport in rural and non-industrial parts of southern England. Using Winchester as a case study, this paper examines the factors which, during a twenty-year period from 1884, transformed soccer from an obscure diversion into a sport that vied with cricket as the area’s most popular recreation. The sources reveal that soccer initially gained acceptance at local schools during the 1880s before being taken up by middle-class cricketers eager to find a game to play during the winter. However, soccer failed to take hold of the public’s imagination until the late 1890s. Reasons for this failure are identified, as are some of the factors which led, from 1895, to a boom in the game’s popularity among the local working class.

Actions, attitudes and beliefs of occupants in managing dampness in buildings

PurposeDampness in buildings affects the health of occupants, structural stability and energy efficiency of buildings. Solutions to managing dampness focus on promoting the use of damp-proof construction materials, enhancing methods to avoid the introduction of moisture during construction and creating the awareness on the health effect of dampness. These solutions are incomplete without the identification of behaviours that occupants require to manage dampness. Given that dampness is characterised by the availability of a source, a route for the moisture to travel and driving force for moisture movement, the occupants can be said to play a significant role in contributing to dampness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachAs a result, this study seeks to examine the behaviours of occupants manifested to manage dampness in residential buildings. To achieve the aim, a qualitative research method was employed, under which interviews were carried out. Occupants in households in the northern and southern parts of England were interviewed to identify the actions, attitudes and beliefs in managing dampness.FindingsThe findings revealed actions such as aeration and the use of anti-damp sprays. From the findings, dampness instilled attitudes such as anger, moodiness and unhappiness. In addition, dampness instilled cleaning habits in occupants due to the lack of comfort moulds create and the awareness of its health impact.Research limitations/implicationsThis research also contributes to existing debates on dampness reduction specifically in residential buildings.Originality/valueThe identification of these behaviours creates the awareness for occupants on their roles in managing dampness and how dampness affects their behaviours in addition to the health impact.

Developing and validating a new national remote health advice syndromic surveillance system in England.

Public Health England (PHE) coordinates a suite of real-time national syndromic surveillance systems monitoring general practice, emergency department and remote health advice data. We describe the development and informal evaluation of a new syndromic surveillance system using NHS 111 remote health advice data. NHS 111 syndromic indicators were monitored daily at national and local level. Statistical models were applied to daily data to identify significant exceedances; statistical baselines were developed for each syndrome and area using a multi-level hierarchical mixed effects model. Between November 2013 and October 2014, there were on average 19 095 NHS 111 calls each weekday and 43 084 each weekend day in the PHE dataset. There was a predominance of females using the service (57%); highest percentage of calls received was in the age group 1-4 years (14%). This system was used to monitor respiratory and gastrointestinal infections over the winter of 2013-14, the potential public health impact of severe flooding across parts of southern England and poor air quality episodes across England in April 2014. This new system complements and supplements the existing PHE syndromic surveillance systems and is now integrated into the routine daily processes that form this national syndromic surveillance service.

In this issue ofWeather

We start with the report by Nick Grahame et al. about a thunderstorm event in 2014. Although summer is the main time of year we can expect large-scale storms in the UK, the event of 13–14 June was unusual, in that it occurred in a polar maritime airstream, rather than in the more usual humid tropical air advected from the south. A combination of warm moist air near the surface with dry air of high PV aloft, as well as an inhibiting cap above the boundary layer made conditions perfect for the generation of these storms, which affected many parts of southern England. This is an interesting case study for all wanting to know more about stormy weather. Next we move on to an account of unusual significant weather conditions noted on duty in southern England by Met Office Observer Nigel Paice. His fascinating 35-year account, through his career, illustrates extreme weather events including dense fog, the inland penetration of a sea breeze, exceptional thunderstorms and even a dust devil! The increasing number of students of weather and the environmental sciences has brought the need for students to have access to high quality modelled weather data and ManUniCast is designed to fulfil that need. David Schultz et al. describe their forecast display system, which can be used on tablets, as well as PCs, and its possible application in the classroom and in the field. This system will undoubtedly be useful to all wishing to know how to interpret weather data, then use it sensibly. Finally, we move on to Richard Worthington's account of the association of convection with mountain-wave activity over Wales and Cross Fell in the North Pennines, illustrated by high-resolution satellite imagery. Although vertical motion must be part of a wave train, there is little acknowledgement of its association with convection.

Analysis of heat stress in UK dairy cattle and impact on milk yields

Much as humans suffer from heat-stress during periods of high temperature and humidity, so do dairy cattle. Using a temperature-humidity index (THI), we investigate the effect of past heatwaves in the UK on heat-stress in dairy herds. Daily THI data derived from routine meteorological observations show that during the summer, there has been an average of typically 1 day per year per station over the past 40 years when the THI has exceeded the threshold for the onset of mild heat-stress in dairy cattle. However, during the heatwaves of 2003 and 2006, this threshold was exceeded on typically 5 days on average in the Midlands, south and east of England. Most dairy cattle are in the west and north of the country and so did not experience the severest heat. Milk yield data in the south-west of England show that a few herds experienced decreases in yields during 2003 and 2006. We used the 11-member regional climate model ensemble with the A1B scenario from UKCP09 to investigate the possible future change in days exceeding the THI threshold for the onset of mild heat-stress. The number of days where the THI exceeds this threshold could increase to over 20 days yr−1 in southern parts of England by the end of the century.

Historicizing counterurbanization: In-migration and the reconstruction of rural space in Berkshire (UK), 1901–51

This article uses census data for Berkshire to argue that large-scale counterurbanization began much earlier than is generally recognized in some parts of southern England. This was not just movement down the urban hierarchy, which as Pooley and Turnbull have demonstrated was a long-term feature of England’s settlement system, but in some cases at least amenity-driven migration to rural areas of the kind increasingly recognized as a core component of recent counterurbanization. Despite a reduction of acreage Berkshire’s rural districts saw a 54% rise in population between 1901 and 1951. The sub-regional pattern of growth is assessed to gauge whether ‘clean break’ migration to the remote west of the county (which remained effectively out of commuting range from London throughout the period) was taking place, or whether counterurbanization was confined to the more accessible eastern districts. However, whilst population did increase in both west and east, it was in fact the central districts that grew most impressively. Three case study parishes are investigated in order to gauge the nature and consequences of counterurbanization at a local level. Professional and business migrants figure prominently, seeking to preserve and promote the rural attributes of their new communities, without however cutting their ties to urban centres. It is argued that migration to rural Berkshire in the first half of the twentieth century cannot adequately be described either as a form of extended suburbanization or an anti-metropolitan ‘clean break’. Rather, early counterurbanization marks the first stage on the long road to a post-productivist countryside, in which countryside becomes detached from agriculture, there is socio-economic convergence between town and country, and the ‘rural’ increasingly becomes defined by landscape and identity rather than economic function.

Torrential downpours in southern England 15 September 2009

AbstractOn 15 September 2009, localised and unexpectedly heavy rainfall developed across parts of southern England and caused disruption to transport and sporting events in parts of London. This event was characterised by the persistence of heavy rainfall in a long, stationary and very narrow band. This event occurred in a similar synoptic pattern to others which also resulted in anomalous and unexpectedly heavy rain in a narrow band. This article discusses the meteorological background to this event and proposes mechanisms that may have led to the distinctive rainfall structure utilising satellite and radar imagery as well as numerical model output. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society

New OSL dating of UK loess: indications of two phases of Late Glacial dust accretion in SE England and climate implications

AbstractWindblown dust deposits or loess, locally known in the UK as brickearth, blanket many parts of southern England outside the limits of the British and Irish Ice Sheet. The best‐studied loess exposures occur in Kent, southeast England, where the deposits are believed to be Late Glacial in age. New sedimentological evidence is presented for phases of accretion with two distinct units, a calcareous brickearth exhibiting periglacial cryoturbation and a non‐calcareous, massive brickearth. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating has been applied to chemically isolated modal quartz silts to derive a chronology for sediment accretion and to better understand the palaeoclimatic significance of these deposits. © British Geological Survey/Natural Environment Research Council copyright 2007. Reproduced with the permission of BGS/NERC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Three soccer playing friends with simultaneous amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease of largely unknown cause, predominantly affecting upper and lower motor neurons. A recent study in Italy suggested an increased incidence of ALS among professional Italian soccer players. We report a cluster of three amateur league soccer players who were friends from the same part of southern England, and developed ALS simultaneously. This might suggest that keen amateur soccer players are also at risk.

Radiocarbon Dates from the Oxford Ams System: Archaeometry Datelist 31

Radiocarbon Dates from the Oxford Ams System: <i>Archaeometry</i> Datelist 31

The geography of survival after surgery for colo-rectal cancer in southern England

This study investigates variations in survival following surgery for colo-rectal cancer in the Wessex region (part of southern England), using 5147 cases diagnosed between 1 September 1991 and 31 August 1995. Survival curve estimation by life tables and Cox's proportional hazards model were used to examine geographical variation in cancer survival, with a specific focus on distance between place of residence and treatment centre, and district of treatment. We also consider whether area deprivation has an impact on survival. In seeking to answer these questions we control for possible confounders, including: age, gender, site of tumour, stage of disease at operation, hospital size and surgery type (whether elective or non-elective). District of treatment, distance and deprivation all show a relationship to outcome using survival curves, but when adjusting for other covariates using the Cox model, and considering deaths from all causes, only district of treatment was a very significant covariate (p<0.0001). Distance, deprivation, and gender were only weakly significant (p<0.10). Considering only deaths related to operation (within 30 days) district of treatment remained significant, but while distance had some effect on outcome, deprivation and gender ceased to be significant covariates. There is some evidence that those who live furthest from centres of treatment have the worst outcomes but the ‘geography of survival’ manifests itself more through where patients are treated than through area (deprivation) effects or relative location. The results have important policy implications, as they show variations among treatment centres having controlled for potentially confounding factors.

Microwave monitoring of rainfall: Intercomparisons of data from the Chilbolton radar and the DMSP‐SSM/I

AbstractGround‐based multi‐parameter radar is used to validate and evaluate satellite passive microwave parameters related to rainfall over land. Light precipitation over the southern part of England is considered. The issues of diverse resolutions of radar and satellite data in space and time are investigated, as well as the satellite beam‐filling problem, in relation to present passive microwave satellite algorithms related to rainfall over land, and their perceived behaviour. Several statistical analyses are applied and their sensitivities to data integration problems are quantified. Passive microwave parameters are evaluated and compared with each other. It is concluded that for radar passive microwave satellite data intercomparisons, calibrations and validations the time resolution seems to be more important than the spatial resolution, and high‐resolution radar can be used operationally to tackle the satellite beam‐filling problem. It is found that several passive microwave algorithms have performances very similar to each other. Copyright © 1997 Royal Meteorological Society

Modelling the impact on navy beans and vining peas of temperature changes predicted from global warming

Conservative estimates of global warming suggest that average daily temperature may be raised by 0.5–1.5 °C by the middle of the next century. This would have an impact on agricultural and horticultural production in the U.K., and may result in a changing distribution of crops and the introduc tion of crops which cannot currently be grown in the U.K. The effect of a warmer climate on navy beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and vining peas (Pisum sativum) was studied with the aid of a heat unit model. Total thermal receipt for the current and a warmer climate over the growing season of navy beans is compared with thermal requirement (sowing to crop maturity) of the crop. The analysis suggested that parts of Southern England would become thermally suitable for navy bean production, given relatively little global warming (0.5 °C). For vining peas, the contraction of the harvesting period due to a warmer climate, with a resulting increase of risk of a lost crop, is examined by using an accumulated day degree time scale from the start of harvest to the time when the crop is too mature. This analysis indicated that the time available for vining pea harvesting (determined by tenderometer values) may decrease by up to 25 per cent, which would significantly increase the risks in harvesting at the optimum time in traditional production areas. It is suggested that growing vining pea crops at more northerly latitudes than currently would help to compensate for the tendency of increased warming to reduce the period for which the crop could be harvested at optimum maturity.

The 1988–92 Drought in its Historical Perspective

ABSTRACTDuring the period 1988–92, the south and east of England were subjected to drought conditions. Data from 10 catchments and three groundwater level records were analysed using runoff and groundwater deficit indices to place the drought in its historical perspective. In parts of eastern England the drought was the most extreme – in terms of runoff deficit – for at least 150 years. It was less notable in other parts of southern England, but still extreme.

The Changing Geography of Recession: Analyses of Local Unemployment Time Series

Unemployment in Great Britain rose again in the early 1990s. By contrast with previous experience, parts of southern England appeared to suffer earlier and more severely than some other parts of Britain. This reversal of traditional norms fuelled renewed interest in the impact of recession at the local and regional scale. Unemployment dynamics are examined over the period from June 1978 to December 1991 at the local labour market area scale. An analysis of turning points in local unemployment series confirms key differences in the timing of entry into the two recessions experienced during this period. Cluster analysis classification techniques are used to identify the shapes of typical local unemployment cycles and these typical unemployment cycles are shown to display distinctive spatial expressions.

Upstairs or Downstairs?

AbstractStructural and documentary evidence is examined for the position of the principal chamber in houses of the richer peasantry between the Norman Conquest and the seventeenth century. It appears that in several parts of southern England the chamber was successively on the ground floor, the first floor, the ground floor again, and finally the upper floor again, although those phases were not simultaneous in different areas. The evidence for the second phase and the transition to the third phase is considered in detail.

On the spatial spread of rabies among foxes.

We present a simple model for the spatial spread of rabies among foxes and use it to quantify its progress in England if rabies were introduced. The model is based on the known ecology of fox behaviour and on the assumption that the main vector for the spread of the disease is the rabid fox. Known data and facts are used to determine real parameter values involved in the model. We calculate the speed of propagation of the epizootic front, the threshold for the existence of an epidemic, the period and distance apart of the subsequent cyclical epidemics which follow the main front, and finally we quantify a means for control of the spatial spread of the disease. By way of illustration we use the model to determine the progress of rabies up through the southern part of England if it were introduced near Southampton. Estimates for the current fox density in England were used in the simulations. These suggest that the disease would reach Manchester within about 3.5 years, moving at speeds as high as 100 km per year in the central region. The model further indicates that although it might seem that the disease had disappeared after the wave had passed it would reappear in the south of England after just over 6 years and at periodic times after that. We consider the possibility of stopping the spread of the disease by creating a rabies 'break' ahead of the front through vaccination to reduce the population to a level below the threshold for an epidemic to exist. Based on parameter values relevant to England, we estimate its minimum width to be about 15 km. The model suggests that vaccination has considerable advantages over severe culling.