Climate on Earth and Beyond

Tropical weather systems, which change the rainfall pattern over South East Asia over the course of a month or two, can trigger planetary scale waves a few miles up in the atmosphere. These waves are predictable and tend to follow paths set by the circulation of air in our atmosphere. As they travel along the jet stream, these waves can directly influence the weather in the UK, giving forecasters a way of predicting UK weather up to two weeks ahead.

Since the first discovery of planets outside our solar system in the 1990s, literally thousands of such planets have been discovered, from those far larger than Jupiter- our solar system's largest planet- to planets that are smaller than Earth. This 'gold rush' has revolutionised astronomy and planetary sciences, and our knowledge of such planets is growing at a phenomenal rate. I'll talk about how we research the climates of such planets- using methods similar to understanding climate on Earth- and how these discoveries could change our thoughts about the uniqueness of our own world.