Outreach and Impact

UK-OSNAP will showcase physical science and technology through the use of social media, blogs and press releases.

You can watch a range of short films made for the North Atlantic Story Project and featuring UK OSNAP researchers.

We’ve posted some videos from our cruises on the UK OSNAP youtube channel.

UK OSNAP has a blog about our adventures at sea.

Watch this really great film about making OSNAP observations at sea – made by our partners at NIOZ, and featuring UK OSNAP scientists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-lhCIQjE4c&feature=youtu.be

There are loads of interesting animations and videos of ocean data at the University of Liverpool’s Ocean Climate YouTube Channel.

In particular we like the videos that consider different perspectives of sea level change, drawing upon the history of sea-level measurements at Liverpool and our ongoing work on understanding past and present sea-level variability and projections for the future.

Part 1: Personal Perspective www.youtube.com/watch?v=je_wqNSc3Hs

Part 2: Historical Perspective www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbzf4SgbZao

Part 3: Future Perspective? www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ZpARgVlFI

Listen to a NERC Planet Earth Online podcast about OSNAP.

UK-OSNAP is a partner in NAVIS, the North Atlantic Virtual Institute that seeks to advance scientific understanding of this key component of our climate system by fostering interaction, exchange, collaboration and education.

Who benefits from UK-OSNAP?

The UK-OSNAP programme will generate a large amount of data and information that will have many uses. Some specific groups that will directly benefit are:

Decadal and seasonal forecasters

Knowledge of the sub-polar North Atlantic Ocean is crucial to the skill of emerging seasonal and decadal forecasting systems. OSNAP will increase the quantity and quality of in-situ observations needed to initialise such forecasts. This will be of direct benefit to the UK Meteorological Office.

UK, European and international climate modellers

Observations of ocean heat, freshwater and mass transports within the sub-polar North Atlantic will provide further valuable data to enable assessment, and subsequent refinement, of coupled ocean/climate models used for prediction. The ability of models to simulate ocean transports within the complex sub-polar region is a candid measure of their performance, and affects simulation of related climate processes.

International and domestic climate policy and decision makers

The reduction of the uncertainty of seasonal, decadal and longer-term model forecasts will ultimately contribute to increasingly reliable projections of future climate, thereby underpinning mitigation and adaptation strategies.  New understanding of environmental variability is highly valuable to organisations that provide advice for maintaining healthy and productive seas. Combination of OSNAP results with data from other locations will aid detection of any large-scale change in the system that may be underway, or evolve, in the coming years, likely to influence regional climate and require modified adaptation and mitigation policies to those currently in place.

Access to UK-OSNAP data and products

Links to OSNAP data can be found at the international OSNAP website