Katharine Giles

Katharine Anne Giles (22 March 1978 - 8 April 2013) was a British climate scientist. Her research considered sea ice cover, ocean circulation and wind patterns. She was a passionate science communicator, and since 2015, the Association of British Science Writers has held a science communication award in her honour.

Katharine Giles
Katharine Giles
Born
Katharine Anne Giles

(1978-03-22)March 22, 1978
DiedApril 8, 2013(2013-04-08) (aged 35)
EducationThe Hertfordshire and Essex High School[1]
Alma materUniversity College London (MSci, PhD)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity College London
ThesisRadar and laser altimeter measurements over Arctic sea ice (2005)
Doctoral advisorSeymour Laxon[2]

Early life and education

Giles was educated at The Hertfordshire and Essex High School, completing GCE A Levels in design technology, maths and physics.[1] She was awarded first class honours for her degree in earth and space science at University College London.[1] She volunteered at the Science Museum during her undergraduate studies.[1] She earned her PhD for research supervised by Seymour Laxon in 2005.[2] She performed the first ground-based experiments to show how to monitor sea ice thickness using satellite altimetery.[3] An altimeter monitors electromagnetic waves reflected from the surface of ice.[4]

Career and research

After completing her PhD, Giles remained at University College London as a postdoctoral researcher, studying the thickness of Arctic Ice.[4] Giles demonstrated that sea ice floes could be used to demonstrate how winds affected the newly exposed Arctic Ocean.[5] She was awarded a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) fellowship to study wind patterns in the Arctic at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling. Giles showed that fresh water in the Arctic Ocean was due to an intensifying of the winds in Beaufort Gyre.[6][7][8][9] To prove this, Giles used the European Remote-Sensing Satellite and Envisat.[6] She calculated that the sea surface in the Western Arctic rose by 15 cm between 2002 and 2012, and sea water had increased by 8000 cubic kilometres.[6] By using the European Space Agency CryoSat-2, Giles identified that thick sea ice had disappeared from Greenland, the Canadian Archipelago and Svalbard.[10] She found that between 2003 and 2012 the arctic sea ice volume in the winter had decreased by 9%.[11][12] The findings confirmed the predictions of the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling & Assimilation System (PIOMAS).[13]

Giles was killed whilst cycling in 2013.[1][14] She had just been appointed as a lecturer at University College London.[1] Peter Wadhams believed that the death could have been an assassination, as Giles' colleagues Seymour Laxon and Tim Boyd all died within the first few months of 2013.[15] In 2016 it was proposed to name the new Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) research vessel (RV) /Royal Research Ship (RRS) Katharine Giles.[16][17] (The vessel was finally named the RRS Sir David Attenborough).

On 3 December 2020, the Government of the British Antarctic Territory named Giles Bay, between Weaver Point and Tula Point at the northern end of Renaud Island, Biscoe Islands for Katharine Giles.[18]

The Dr Katharine Giles Fund

The Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) awards the Dr Katharine Giles science communication prize each year for the best popular article written by a scientist or engineer. As well as a cash award, the Fund offers free media training to winners.[19] The prize is funded by the Dr Katharine Giles Fund. It has been awarded to:

  • 2016 Alex Bellos from the Guardian newspaper[20][21]
  • 2017 Microbe Post, written by Benjamin Thompson and Anand Jagatia from the Microbiology Society[22]
  • 2018 Andy Brunning, Compound Interest[23]
  • 2019 The Student Engager Team (Arendse Lund, Cerys Bradley, Kyle Lee-Crossett, Josie Mills, Hannah Wills, Alexandra Bridarolli, Mark Kearney, Anna Pokorska, Hannah Page, Sarah Gibbs, Cerys Jones, Caz Thompson, and Jen Datiles) from University College London[24]
  • 2020 Anna Henschel at the Glasgow Insight Into Science & Technology for the article Can really *everyone* be a data scientist?[25][26]
  • 2021 Professor Sheena Cruickshank, University of Manchester, for her article "Inflammation: the key factor that explains vulnerability to severe COVID"[27]
  • 2022 Bonnie Waring, Imperial College London, "There aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be", The Conversation[28]

Family history in climate research

Giles's great, great grandfather was Edward Walter Maunder whose solar research, and in particular the period of rare sunspot activity, the Maunder Minimum, has been linked to historical variations in climate.[29]

References
  1. Butter, Susannah (2013). "The short, brilliant life of climate change scientist Dr Katharine". standard.co.uk. London Evening Standard. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  2. Katharine Anne, Giles (2005). Radar and laser altimeter measurements over Arctic sea ice. ucl.ac.uk (PhD thesis). OCLC 500497595. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.420939. Retrieved 2018-08-19. icon of an open green padlock
  3. Anon (2013-04-25). "Katharine Giles, 1978-2013". timeshighereducation.com. Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  4. "Arctic ice thickness 'plummets'". 2008-10-28. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  5. "UCL colleagues pay tribute to Dr Katharine Giles". ucl.ac.uk. University College London. 10 April 2013. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  6. "Huge pool of Arctic fresh water could cool Europe". Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  7. Giles, Katharine A.; Laxon, Seymour W.; Ridout, Andy L.; Wingham, Duncan J.; Bacon, Sheldon (2012). "Western Arctic Ocean freshwater storage increased by wind-driven spin-up of the Beaufort Gyre". Nature Geoscience. 5 (3): 194–197. Bibcode:2012NatGe...5..194G. doi:10.1038/ngeo1379. ISSN 1752-0894.
  8. Giles, Katharine A.; Laxon, Seymour W.; Ridout, Andy L.; Wingham, Duncan J.; Bacon, Sheldon (2012). "Western Arctic Ocean freshwater storage increased by wind-driven spin-up of the Beaufort Gyre". Nature Geoscience. 5 (3): 194–197. Bibcode:2012NatGe...5..194G. doi:10.1038/ngeo1379. ISSN 1752-0894.
  9. "Radar sees Arctic freshwater dome". BBC News. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
  10. "NERC - CryoSat-2 mission reveals major Arctic sea-ice loss". nerc.ukri.org. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  11. Laxon, Seymour W.; Giles, Katharine A.; Ridout, Andy L.; Wingham, Duncan J.; Willatt, Rosemary; Cullen, Robert; Kwok, Ron; Schweiger, Axel; Zhang, Jinlun (2013). "CryoSat-2 estimates of Arctic sea ice thickness and volume". Geophysical Research Letters. 40 (4): 732–737. Bibcode:2013GeoRL..40..732L. doi:10.1002/grl.50193. hdl:1912/5923. ISSN 0094-8276.
  12. "CryoSat-2 mission reveals major Arctic sea-ice loss - AGU Newsroom". AGU Newsroom. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  13. "Arctic Death Spiral Bombshell: CryoSat-2 Confirms Sea Ice Volume Has Collapsed". Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  14. Weinstock, Maia. "Gone in 2013: A Tribute to 10 Remarkable Women in Science". Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  15. Mendick, Robert (2015-07-25). "Three scientists investigating melting Arctic ice may have been assassinated, professor claims". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  16. Sanghani, Radhika (2016-04-08). "Forget Boaty McBoatface - this ship should be named after my amazing scientist sister who died". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  17. Townsend, Emily. "Research vessel should be named after polar researcher Dr Katharine Giles say Ipswich parents". East Anglian Daily Times. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  18. "Polar scientists and staff awarded place names in Antarctica".
  19. "ABSW Science Writers' Awards 2017 now open - Medical Journalists' Association". Medical Journalists' Association. 2017-01-30. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  20. Anon (2016-07-24). "Guardian's Alex Bellos scoops best science blog award". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  21. "Alex Bellos wins best science blog award". janklowandnesbit.co.uk. Janklow & Nesbit. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  22. "Microbe Post has won an award!". Microbe Post. 2017-05-26. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  23. "Compound Interest - About". compoundchem.com. 16 December 2013. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  24. Lund, Arendse. "Student Engagers Win 'Oscars of Science Journalism!'". Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  25. Henschel, Anna. "Can really *everyone* be a data scientist?". THEGIST. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  26. "ABSW Awards 2020: shortlist and winners". Association of British Science Writers. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  27. "Inflammation: The key factor that explains vulnerability to severe COVID".
  28. "There aren't enough trees in the world to offset society's carbon emissions – and there never will be". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 2023-07-20.
  29. Science 18 Jun 1976:Vol. 192, Issue 4245, pp. 1189-1202
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