Dr Claire Smith

Urban climate, climate change adaptation, sustainable development, GIS, speleothem palaeoclimatology, climate reconstruction

Manchester’s Urban Heat Island Effect

This is a knowledge transfer program in partnership with the Royal Meteorological Society and Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, which has been designed to help get pupils involved with measuring the urban microclimate of Manchester. For more information and press coverage see:

• Altrincham Grammar School for Girls website
• BBC News website

Sustainable Cities: Options for Responding to Climate cHange Impacts and Outcomes (SCORCHIO)

Funder EPSRC. Grant Ref EP/E017398/1. Collaborators - Universities of Manchester , East Anglia, Newcastle and Sheffield with the Hadley Centre, Met Office.

Neither the effects of the urban landscape nor the heat released by human activities within cities are considered in standard climate change research, but these have been shown to be potentially very significant. Also the science and practice of adaptation of the built environment to climate change is still in its infancy. For climate change adaptation strategies to be developed for cities and regions in the UK , there is therefore an urgent need for decision support tools to appraise and design adaptation options. Building on the findings of the ASCCUE project, SCORCHIO aims to develop tools that use updated climate change forecasts to help planners, designers, engineers and users to adapt urban areas, with a particular emphasis on heat and human comfort.

• SCORCHIO Website

Year 1

• GEOG 10412 Physical Geography and Contemporary Environmental Issues
• GEOG 11092 Approaches to Research
• GEOG 12021 Tutorials

Year 2

• GEOG 20381 Geographical Information Systems
• GEOG 20771 Communication Skills

Year 3

• GEOG 30180 Applying GIS

Postgraduate

• MSc Geographic Information Science

Smith, C. L. and Levermore, G. J. (2008). Foresight Report B11: Designing urban spaces and buildings to improve sustainability and quality of life in a warmer world. Energy Policy, In Press.

Baker, A. Smith, C. L., Jex, C. Fairchild, I. J., Genty, D. and Fuller, L. (2008). Annually Laminated Speleothems: A Review.  International Journal of Speleology 37: 193-206.

Jex, C., Claridge, E., Baker, A. and Smith, C. (2008). Hyperspectral Imaging of Speleothems. Quaternary International, 187: 5-14.

Asrat, A., Baker, A., Mohammed, M. U., Leng, MJ., Van Calsteren, P. and Smith, C.L. (2007). A high-resolution multi-proxy stalagmite record from Mechara, southeastern Ethiopia: palaeohydrological implications for speleothem palaeoclimate reconstruction. Journal of Quaternary Science, 22: 53-63.

Smith, C. L., Baker, A., Fairchild, I. J., Frisia, S. and Borsato, A. (2006). Reconstructing hemispheric-scale climates from multiple stalagmite records. International Journal of Climatology, 26: 1417-1424.

Fairchild, I.J., Smith, C. L., Baker, A., Fuller, L., Spötl, C., Mattey, D., McDermott, F. and E.I.M.F, (2006). Modification and preservation of environmental signals in speleothems. Earth Science Reviews, 75: 105-153.

Tan, M., Baker, A., Genty, D., Smith, C. L., Esper, J., and Cai, B. (2006). Applications of stalagmite laminae to paleoclimate reconstructions: comparison with dendrochronology/climatology. Quaternary Science Reviews, 25: 2103-2117.

Smith, C. L., Lindley, S. J. and Levermore, G. J. (In Review). Estimation of Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Anthropogenic Heat Fluxes in UK urban areas. Theoretical and Applied Climatology

Smith, C. L., Fairchild, I. J., Spötl, C., Frisia, S., Borsato, A., Wynn, P. and Bryant, C. (2009). Chronology-building using objective identification of annual signals in trace element profiles of stalagmites. Quaternary Geochronology 4:11-21.