For the love of weather

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 f...

Please welcome Dan Harris, Chartered Meteorologist and Deputy Chief Meteorologist at the UK Met Office. In this episode we chat about sting jets. Dan’s description of sting jets will bring to life this powerful atmospheric wind in a way you may not have understood before. The Great Storm of 1987 in the UK was the first time a sting jet was identified when a unique shape in the clouds was observed...

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...

Meet Space Weather expert Krista Hammond who has been forecasting with the Met Office for 16 years. Kirsta is an operational Space Weather Meteorologist as well as a senior Account Manager for Space Weather. As we enter into a solar maximum, Space Weather activity has been hitting the headlines, not only because of the frequency of the spectacular display of the aurora borealis but because there h...

Sarah is the owner of an instagram account called @elecrify_this. She started the account one 40 degree day in Sydney in December 2023. Then on Christmas Day, she accidentally posted a reel that went viral, gaining her tens of thousands of followers. She has a down to earth approach on how to decarbonise and electrify your house. Her instagram account has only been running a short time but it is a...

WOW is all we can say. What an incredible guest! Meet Kirsten Neuschäfer who won the Golden Globe Race in 2022. The Golden Globe Race is a solo around the world sailing race and it took Kirsten 233 days to complete it.  Not only is she the only female to win the race, she is also the first South African to win the GGR. As well as that, during the race she rescued fellow competitor Tapio Lehti...

We are delighted to introduce Kathy Morrisey, planning and insights director at Stansted Airport.  Kathy’s inspiration in life is her father who didn’t think there was a barrier to what girls could do. He believed in the power of learning and Kathy said he knew  his daughters could conquer the world.   She said that her father gave her the gift of blind expectation, that you co...

In December 2023 social platforms lit up with images of nacreous clouds. One evening in December 2023 these clouds, also known as mother of pearl clouds, were visible across the UK and Northern Europe. In this episode we welcome back stratospheric expert Dr Simon Lee to find out why these clouds were seen so far south and piece together the relationship between the displacement of the polar vortex...

We took the podcast to the Blue Earth Summit 2023 in Bristol. 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! We were absolutely blown away by the amazing talks and conversations we had and most importantly people’s willingness to give us their time to talk about what they were passionat...

David Cran has worked in aviation for the last 34 years in a range of roles including air traffic control, airfield operations, airport manager and meteorological observer. He really is an expert in his field. He has worked at both big and small airfields, which have handled a range of air traffic from hot air balloons, to big aircrafts such as the A380 and even Airforce One. David is currently th...

Meet Dr. Lindsay Biermann. Lindsay grew up in a landlocked state so laughs about the fact that she is now an expert in marine aquaculture and waterfowl in the UK. Lindsay says her first memory of being interested in nature was in the sixth grade when she declared to her Mum that she was going to be a zoologist. Roll on some years later and she is now an expert in how climate change is impacting mi...

Winter sea ice in the Antarctic is at a historic low. Imagine an area equivalent to the tenth largest country in the world; that is precisely what’s missing. We revisit Dr Ella Gilbert aka Dr Gilbz to try to comprehend how much ice is missing and just why it’s still making headlines. Dr Ella discuses the unimaginable impact of this extraordinary loss of sea ice, not only in Antarctica, but around...

Juliet Kinsman is the owner of ‘Bouteco’, a purpose-led non-profit communications consultancy for trusted sustainable luxury travel content and storytelling free of greenwash. Juliet is also a journalist, author, sustainability editor as well as being a Mum. Her solid ethics and life experience oozes through this podcast and we can honestly say we didn’t want this conversation to end. Juliet Kinsm...

Meet Thomas Aubry, lecturer at the University of Exeter and expert in physical volcanology and climate sciences. Thomas talks about the complex relationship between volcanoes and climate change. We were astounded to find out that a changing climate may in fact cause more frequent eruptions due to the potential change in pressure on the magma chamber from any number of processes such as heavy rain...

In this episode we meet author Author Caryl Hart and illustrator Bethan Woollvin. They were brought together through their publisher Bloomsbury books who spotted a small gif of a planet that Bethan created. They asked Caryl if she would be interested in working with Bethan, writing a children’s rhyming books. It was an instant success and they have now created three books together: ‘Meet the Weath...

Fun fact: Alina went to college with Victoria Beckham and lived with her for a year when she was 16. And if that didn’t grab your attention Alina was an actress and dancer. She went on to become an award-winning presenter and broadcaster working extensively across radio and television for over twenty years. You may have seen Alina on Countryfile, the Six and Ten O’clock News, as well as Radio 4. A...

Jenny is Head of the Real Time Service and System Operations Division at Eumetsat in Germany. She has a wealth of experience in weather and now weather satellites, previously working for ECMWF and the Met Office. Eumetsat is responsible for maintaining and operating meteorological satellites. The organsiation delivers this data to where it needs to go, ensuring that supercomputers around the world...

Helen Roberts has a breadth of experience in weather forecasting and is the Met Office’s first socio-meteorologist. Helen’s fascination with ‘Big Science’ started as a little girl in the southwest of England, looking at sunsets and thunderstorms from her bedroom window. Listening to Helen on this podcast you can hear how that curiosity has evolved and lasted right the way through her career. She t...

Dr Emily Fairfax is an ecohydrologist. She is an expert in beavers and describes them as rockstars in climate mitigation. Beavers are nature’s wetland creators, providing natural solution to droughts, wildfire risk as well as well as floods while also providing huge natural stores of carbon. You will probably be as surprised as we were to find out that before human’s fully settled in North America...

Jonathan Lukies says he is lucky as he has always known what he wanted to do. As a young boy he lived on a farm, absorbing everything his grandfather and father told him. Today he runs Cammas Hall Farm, always working to secure the farms future in a changing economy and changing climate. The mission of the farm is to be a destination where visitors can enjoy the highest quality local produce in be...

It was an absolute privilege to talk to Leo Hickman the director of Carbon Brief. The Carbon Brief is an invaluable and trusted resource for the latest development in climate science as well as energy and climate policy. In 2003 Leo worked for the Guardian newspaper. His editor asked him to take part in a journalistic experiment to live an ethical life for one year. Leo, his wife and his new born...

It's time for a brand new season of For the Love of Weather podcast and Aisling and Gemma are thrilled to have made it to season five. Our special guest tonight is Dr. Simon Lee. Simon is an expert in the polar vortex, more specifically stratosphere-troposphere coupling, a fascinating subject and something that caused the 'Beast from the East in 2018'. Simon gives us a tour of the upper atmosphere...

After a brief brush with a military career Sophie found her calling as a campaign and communications lead with the Beaver’s Trust where she presented their award winning documentary ‘Beavers without Border’. She loves sharing her knowledge and passion for nature and climate and tells us how important it is to get people hooked on the joy you feel when you care about something. Her book has just de...

Dr Ganga Shreedhar was an absolutely fascinating guest. She is an assistant professor in behavioural science at the London School of Economics. Ganga is an applied behavioural and experimental economist studying how to change human behaviour in ways that can benefit people and the planet. She discusses how the weather impacts our mood, behaviour and perhaps more importantly here in the UK - the na...

Meet Peter Macauley. He is a young wine maker in Chapeldown in Kent. The changing climate here in the UK has meant that growing wine is now a viable option and it turns out wine makers in the UK are getting pretty good at making sparkling wine. Oenology and viticulture will become your new favourite subject after listening to Peter talk so passionately about his labour of love. His attention to de...