physics

Mike Lockwood (physicist)

Mike Lockwood (physicist) is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mike Lockwood (physicist) rather than just read about it. In short: Michael Lockwood FRS (born 1954) is a Professor of Space Environment Physics at the University of Reading. Life and works Schooled at The Skinners' School, Tunbridge Wells, he earned his BSc (1975) and then PhD (1978) degrees at the University of Exeter.

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Reference excerpt

Michael Lockwood FRS (born 1954) is a Professor of Space Environment Physics at the University of Reading.

Life and works Schooled at The Skinners' School, Tunbridge Wells, he earned his BSc (1975) and then PhD (1978) degrees at the University of Exeter. Much of his career has been with Rutherford Appleton Laboratory but he has also worked at University of Southampton, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and University of Auckland. His research interests comprise, among others, variations in the magnetic fields of the Sun, interplanetary space, and the Earth and in general solar influence on global and regional climate. He has served as the Chair of the Council of EISCAT and as a Council member for the British Natural Environment Research Council. His lectures, at the Saas-Fee Advanced Course The Sun, Solar Analogs and the Climate, together with contributions of such experts as Joanna Haigh and Mark Giampapa, were published as a book by Springer in 2006. He played football during his postdoctoral studies in a team called the Merry Pranksters of Exeter University. He plays guitar for the band Dumber than Chickens.

Positions on solar influence on global and regional climate In 2007, Lockwood co-authored a paper about solar data from the past 40 years. He was partly inspired to conduct the study after seeing the Great Global Warming Swindle, which contends that the Sun is the primary cause of recent climate change. He found that between 1985 and 1987 all the solar factors that could affect climate performed a "U-turn in every possible way". Lockwood told the New Scientist that he seriously doubted that solar influences were a big factor compared to anthropogenic influences: to explain the lack of global cooling since 1987 would require a very long response time to any solar forcing which is not found in detected responses to volcanic forcing. However, Lockwood has stressed the distinction between global, regional and seasonal climate changes and is of the opinion that solar modulation of the winter, northern hemisphere jet stream might well result in Europe experiencing a higher fraction of cold winters. From past variations of the Sun deduced from cosmogenic isotopes he concludes that a slide into a new Maunder Minimum is possible over the next 50–100 years. The biggest impact of such a decline in solar activity would be a higher occurrence frequency of relatively cold winters in the UK and across Europe, each of which would be accompanied by a relatively warm one elsewhere (for example in Greenland). In 2012, Lockwood said the field of Sun-climate relations had been "corrupted by unwelcome political and financial influence as climate change sceptics have seized upon putative solar effects as an excuse for inaction on anthropogenic warming".

Awards 1990 The Zel'dovich Award for Commission C (Ionospheric Physics), awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), of the International Council of Scientific Unions 1990 The Issac Koga Gold Medal, awarded by the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) 1998 The Chapman Medal, awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society, London 2003 The Charles Chree (now renamed the Appleton) Award and Prize, awarded by the Institute of Physics, London 2006 Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London 2012 The Julius Bartels Medal, awarded by the European Geosciences Union 2015 The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for Geophysics

Works M. Lockwood, The study of HF radio waves propagated over a long, sub-auroral path, Exeter University, UK, 1978 (http://lib.exeter.ac.uk/record=b1308620~S6) Saas-Fe Book (2004), J.D. Haigh, M. Lockwood and M.S. Giampapa, The Sun, Solar Analogs and the Climate, Springer, ISBN 3-540-23856-5, 2004 M. Lockwood Reconstruction and Prediction of Variations in the Open Solar Magnetic Flux and Interplanetary Conditions, Living Reviews in Solar Physics, 10, 4, 2013. doi:10.12942/lrsp-2013-4 M. Lockwood, Solar Influence on Global and Regional Climate, Surveys in Geophysics, 33 (3), 503–534, 2012. doi:10.1007/s10712-012-9181-3 M. Lockwood et al., The rise and fall of open solar flux during the current grand solar maximum, Ap. J., 700 (2), 937–944, 2009. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/700/2/937 M. Lockwood et al., A doubling of the sun's coronal magnetic field during the last 100 years, Nature, 399, 437–439, 1999. doi:10.1038/20867 S.W.H. Cowley and M. Lockwood, Excitation and decay of solar-wind driven flows in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system, Annales Geophys., 10, 103–115, 1992. M. Lockwood et al., Ionospheric signatures of pulsed magnetic reconnection at the Earth's magnetopause, Nature, 361 (6411), 424–428, 1993 doi:10.1038/361424a0, 1993 M. Lockwood et al., Non-Maxwellian ion velocity distributions observed using EISCAT, Geophys. Res. Lett., 14, 111–114, 1987. doi:10.1029/GL014i002p00111 M. Lockwood et al., The geomagnetic mass spectrometer – mass and energy dispersions of ionospheric ion flows into the magnetosphere, Nature, 316, 612–613, 1985. doi:10.1038/316612a0 more than 400 journal publications

References

External links Mike Lockwood Q and A interview Mike Lockwood webpage at University of Reading Mike Lockwood CV

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mike Lockwood (physicist)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mike Lockwood (physicist) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mike Lockwood (physicist) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mike Lockwood (physicist) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mike Lockwood (physicist)

In research: Mike Lockwood (physicist) appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mike Lockwood (physicist) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mike Lockwood (physicist) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1954 births, Academics of the University of Reading, Alumni of the University of Exeter, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mike Lockwood (physicist) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mike Lockwood (physicist) in 20 minutes

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Frequently asked questions

What is Mike Lockwood (physicist) in simple terms?

Michael Lockwood FRS (born 1954) is a Professor of Space Environment Physics at the University of Reading. Life and works Schooled at The Skinners' School, Tunbridge Wells, he earned his BSc (1975) and then PhD (1978) degrees at the University of Exeter.

Why does Mike Lockwood (physicist) matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mike Lockwood (physicist)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mike Lockwood (physicist).