Upcoming webinars
Free UKCMB webinar: Myth and Mould – Dramatising fungi
Speaker: Marietta Kirkbride
Date: Friday 26th April 2024, 10-11 BST
In this presentation, Marietta speaks about the inspiration and research behind her audio drama series
SPORES – a psychological horror story about social-worker, Cassie, who discovers a mould growing in people’s homes that nobody else can see. Sometimes stories can be powerful tools for capturing public imagination and bringing attention to overlooked issues. Drawing on examples in other works of fiction, and her research into housing and fungi, Marietta asks if fungi’s recent prominence in the cultural zeitgeist, could be a catalyst for raising awareness and sparking new ideas when it comes to public health and housing.
Previous webinars
How is the fungal kingdom adapting to the built environment?
Professor Matthew Fisher, Professor of Fungal Epidemiology, Imperial College
Date: Friday 23rd February 2024, 10-11 GMT
Summary:
The Kingdom Fungi is a biodiverse and essential component of our habitable Planet and fungal
spores are in every breath we take. However, recent decades have seen an increase in the number of pathogenic fungi infecting natural populations and managed landscapes; fungi are increasingly recognized as presenting a worldwide threat to food security and the healthy functioning of ecosystems. In parallel, clinicians and biomedical scientists are fighting emerging fungal pathogens that infect millions of people every year and there are signs that fungi are become increasingly adapted to resist frontline antifungal therapies. As our populations become increasingly urbanised and dwell indoors, our exposures to fungi are changing, often not for the better.
This talk will present an overarching view of the challenges ahead as we increasingly need to confront and manage fungi in our built environments.
Topic: Present day and future wind-driven rain in the United Kingdom
Speaker: Dr Michael G. Sanderson, Senior Scientist at Met Office
Date: Friday 19th January 2024, 10-11am GMT
Summary: Wind-driven rain is a major cause of moisture ingress in buildings. Existing datasets for the UK were derived from weather station data for 1959-1991. Recently, the Met Office created an updated wind-driven rain dataset for the Department for Energy security and Net Zero using high-resolution climate data from the United Kingdom Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18). Wind-driven rain was quantified for eight wall orientations and three time periods: a baseline (1981-2000) and two future periods corresponding to when global climate reaches 2°C and 4°C above pre-industrial levels. The future data suggest that wind-driven rain from northerly and easterly directions will be smaller in the future, whereas it would increase for westerly and southerly directions. The largest increases are projected for south and west-facing coastal areas.
Overall aim of the webinar:
- raise awareness of the new wind-driven rain dataset, including possible effects of climate change
Learning outcomes/ objectives for the participants:
- Understand the importance of wind-driven rain for buildings and how wind-driven rain can be quantified
- Discuss the use of high-resolution (temporal and spatial) climate model data to produce a new wind-driven rain dataset
- Know the projected effects of climate change on wind-driven rain in the UK
- Gain knowledge of wind-driven rain on the Met Office climate data portal
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