Like many people during the current coronavirus situation, the majority of the GloSAT team are working from home and getting used to a different way of working. Although progress can be a little slower and problems may take slightly longer to resolve, the team have adjusted to the circumstances and are busy ensuring the project progresses.

Recruitment of people to some of the GloSAT positions has been delayed due to current circumstances. However, we have recruited a new researcher at NOC and an intern at Southampton will spend three months working on aspects of improved automation of ship log image analysis.

Some activities are just not possible. For example, visiting archives to retrieve handwritten records such as ships’ logs that can then be digitised. Instead, background research is being carried out. Meanwhile records that have already been digitised are being checked and converted to standard formats to enable use across all models.

Delays to planned upgrades of high performance computing facilities that GloSAT need to  use will delay some climate model simulations. The extra time spent in preparation for the model runs does mean that once the upgrades are complete, they can be setup and run relatively quickly.

Hopefully the team will be able to get together in person for the first annual meeting in November to share and discuss their work – though of course we’re all prepared for the possibility that it will be a virtual annual meeting!