Warming, Acidification and Sea-level Projector Android Platform
by Callum Spawforth
Part of the EPSRC Vacation Bursaries Scheme 2015
Student Name: Callum Spawforth
Student Degree Course: MEng Computer Science
Year of Study: 3
Supervisors: Prof. Alex Rogers
Vacation Bursary Project Title: Warming, Acidification and Sea-level Projector Android Platform
Tell us a bit about you and your chosen research field
I’ve just completed my second year studying Computer Science with Distributed Systems. Digital technology is already ubiquitous in most people’s lives, and I am enthusiastic about its potential to completely change the way people interact with and perceive the world. As part of an internship, I’m working with the Agents, Interaction and Complexity (AIC) research group in the Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) department. We’re aiming transform a sophisticated climate model into an application to allow people to perceive the impact of global CO2 emissions on the climate.
Tell us about your specific research project
My specific project is a part of the Warming, Acidification and Sea-level Projector Project (WASP). The WASP project is a cross-University initiative between OES and ECS. It’s aim is to create an interactive, ultra-fast climate model that can be run on smart-phones, tablets or online via an internet browser.
I’m working on creating an innovative Android application that allows a user to view charts of:
- Atmospheric CO2
- Sea-level rise
- Atmospheric temperature change
- Ocean acidity
Based on four simple policy decisions:
- Reference year to compare reduction targets to (e.g 2015)
- When to begin reductions (e.g 2030)
- First reduction target (e.g. reduce emissions by 65% relative to the reference year by 2040)
- Final emissions target for 2100 (e.g 95% of reference year’s levels)
The idea behind this is to allow users to meaningfully assess how different policy decisions affect the magnitude of climate change.
It is being built using a combination of Java for the Android development and a cross-platform C model that performs the calculations. I also attempted a web-based view using HTML and Javascript, however this proved too slow to be feasible.
Describe any future plans regarding on-going study/postgraduate research connected to your vacation bursary project:
The opportunity to work within the department has given me a far better insight into the nature of postgraduate work, as well as the different topic areas covered by their research. The project has helped show me the novel and interesting nature of the research that ECS does, and going on to postgraduate study is definitely something I’d consider.
Categories: Blog. Tags: acidification, alex rogers, Blog, Callum spawforth, epsrc, idr, interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary research, research, sea level projector android platform, University of Southampton, vacation bursaries, vacation bursary, and warming.