Although modelling is not something that obviously lends itself to a show-and-tell, each year we wheel out our secret weapon, the Pufferfish globe, and put together a series of animations from our work to try to make simulated reality a little more tangible to everyone else.
This time around, we've managed to get our model, M
First up, mixed layer depth ...
Which influences the submarine light field and, to a first approximation, the seasonal cycle of phytoplankton (here diatoms + non-diatoms) ...
Which, in turn, govern the rise of grazing zooplankton populations (here microzooplankton + mesozooplankton) ...
But why, given all of the light, are the tropics so empty of plankton, well, that'll be the nutrients (here the nitrogen ones) ...
And finally, what's going on in the Southern Ocean where there are lots of nutrients, well, that'll be the micronutrient iron ...
We seemed to get a pretty good turnout this year. Certainly, our room was generally well-attended, though we did have a number of inexplicable (i.e. not lunchtime) troughs in public interest.
Generally, the feedback we got was really positive. Everyone loves the globe, and while it's clearly the best part of our exhibition for many people [2], a lot of people were more interested in the underlying science. And not just the simple "what's that?" stuff either. Quite a few people got me to go into a lot of depth on what some of the movies were showing, and a number even got me onto topics that were quite far removed from what the movies actually showed.
Interestingly, and in spite of current opinion polls, there were less attendees skeptical of climate change this year. I've not had anyone really hostile to the science yet [3], but I did have to argue science's corner a couple of times more last year. This time around the only skeptical visitor that I had was a retired engineer who, while not entirely convinced that the ongoing changes lay outside natural variability, was also pretty skeptical of the (so-called) skeptics because of their tactics. He could clearly see that they weren't interested in getting to the bottom of the problems they raised, and that they were just stirring things up. Anyway, I don't think I convinced him, but I hope I was able to clarify things on a few points for him.
Much as with last year's Open Day, I found the whole day a lot of fun. It's always really satisfying to show people something new and to be able to answer their questions on it. And the enthusiasm of our visitors is pretty infectious as well. Working on the same subject day after day is a pretty good way of losing sight of how interesting that subject really can be. The Open Day is a great way of getting a refresher.
In passing, aside from the movies that we showed on our globe, I also thought it would be a good idea to make a movie of what our day looked like. So I set up a time-lapse that ran for the whole period that we were open for business. Even though I look like (= am) an untidy slob, I think it turned out pretty well ...
[1] Well, high for now - we'll be describing it as "medium" before too long!
[2] I lost track of the number of people who only asked about how the globe (rather than the science) worked, and how much it cost.
[3] But would they come to the Open Day in the first place? Probably not - such a faith requires the nourishing effects of unquestioning ignorance.
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