Review of the Monitoring Programme: Baseline Measurement and Analysis of UK Ozone and UV

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Devolved Administrations (DA) continue to fund a long-running programme Baseline Measurement and Analysis of UK Ozone and UV to monitor column (effectively stratospheric) ozone and surface UV. The main driver for the monitoring programme is the 1985 Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer. The Convention obliges parties (including the UK) to undertake inter alia monitoring, data dissemination and information exchange activities. The current monitoring programme comprises: • measurements of column ozone at two sites in the UK (Lerwick and Reading) • spectrally-resolved UV measurements at one site (Reading) The ozone element of the monitoring programme was reviewed in 2002. Defra has commissioned this review of the programme to ensure that it continues to meet current and future policy and scientific requirements as well as international obligations. The Review The review was structured in terms of 7 questions, which addressed a range of strategic, technical and organisational aspects of the monitoring programme. 1. How does the monitoring programme help to meet the UK obligations under the Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer? 2. Are the data currently collected in the monitoring programme fit for purpose? If not, what measures could be employed to make the data fit for purpose? Are there any activities in the current monitoring programme which are no longer needed? 3. Are the current measurement techniques viable into the future (over a 5-20 year timescale), and what other techniques/instruments are available? 4. Are current methodologies for disseminating information sufficient? If other techniques/instruments are preferable, how (or indeed could) they be introduced whilst maintaining the continuity of the results? 5. Is the current monitoring programme cost effective? 6. Is the current monitoring programme structured for optimum delivery? 7. Should all or part of the programme be competitively tendered, or indeed should it be competitively tendered at all? Summary of Findings The key findings were 1. The current monitoring programme is working well but it has a low profile and impact 2. There are options to evolve the programme but these require further, more detailed evaluation

A machine vision system for forensic analysis

Human skeletal remains are analysed by forensic anthropologists in order to draw conclusions about the probable identity of the deceased. During the analysis, the skull is used, along with other bones, to help determine the identity of the decedent. If only the base of the skull is available, forensic researchers take manual measurements from the large oval aperture in this region, the foramen magnum, in order to obtain information about the gender of the deceased. As this operation requires human intervention, the measurements are affected by the bias introduced by the human operator. The aim of this paper is to describe a full machine vision solution to perform precise morphological measurements of the foramen magnum. The system has been designed to extract measurements from 2D and 3D data and the returned results accurately match the manual measurements

Peroxy radicals in the summer free troposphere: seasonality and potential for heterogeneous loss

The sum of peroxy radicals (HO2+ΣiRiO2) and supporting trace gases were measured on the Jungfraujoch (3580 m a.s.l.) during the late summer of 2005. The period was marked by extended times of heavy snow which led to reduction in the observed peroxy radicals during the snowy periods that was greater than the concomitant reduction in j(O1D). In the limit a first order loss rate of 0.0063 s−1 can be derived for the peroxy radical loss in the snowy conditions that could be potentially ascribed to a heterogenous loss process. On snow free days photolysis of HCHO is shown to be a significant peroxy radical source. The seasonal trends of the peroxy radical concentrations have been mapped from the winter to summer transition in line with previous experiments. Net ozone production in late summer at the Jungfraujoch was net neutral to marginally ozone destructive. A value of 28±4 pptv is calculated for the ozone compensation point for the snow free days.ISSN:1680-7375ISSN:1680-736