The functional electroceramics market is multibillion pounds in value and growing year by year. Electroceramic components are vital to the operation of a wide variety of home electronics, mobile communications, computer, automotive and aerospace systems. The UK ceramics industry tends to focus on a number of specialist markets and there are new opportunities in sensors, communications, imaging and related systems as new materials are developed. To enable the UK ceramics community to benefit from the new and emerging techniques for the processing and characterisation of functional electroceramics a series of collaborative exchanges will be undertaken between the three UK universities (Manchester, Sheffield and Imperial College) and universities and industry in Europe (Austria, Germany, Russia, Czech Republic), the USA and Asia (Japan, Taiwan and Singapore). These exchanges will enable the UK researchers (particularly those at an early stage of their careers) to learn new experimental and theoretical techniques. This knowledge and expertise will be utilised in the first instance in the new bilateral collaborative projects, and transferred to the UK user communities (UK universities and UK industry). A number of seminars and a two day Workshop will be held to help the dissemination of knowledge.

Sea salt aerosol (SSA) may influence regional climate directly through scattering of radiation or indirectly via its role as cloud-forming particles. While it is well known that SSA can be cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) forming cloud droplets, it has been shown only recently that SSA can also be a source of ice nucleating particles (INP) forming ice crystals, depending on its chemical composition and surface shape. Arctic clouds are poorly represented in climate models, which is partly due to a lack of understanding of source and nucleating capability of natural aerosol in the high Arctic. Aerosol models for example do currently not capture aerosol maxima in the Arctic winter/spring observed at high latitudes. Recent field campaigns provide first evidence of a hypothesized source of SSA from salty blowing snow (BSn) above sea ice. During storms salty snow gets lofted into the air and undergoes sublimation to generate SSA. Additional but minor SSA sea ice sources are frost flowers and open leads. The impact on radiation and clouds of SSA from this new source of SSA above sea ice is not known. However, a quantitative understanding of natural aerosol processes and climate interactions is needed to provide a baseline against which to assess anthropogenic pollution reaching the Arctic and evaluate the success of mitigation measures. We therefore propose to determine the SSA source, fate and potential impact on Arctic climate associated with blowing snow above sea ice and other sea ice sources. To do this we seek funding to participate in the year-long Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) to observe aerosol processes in the central Arctic ocean throughout all seasons. Proposed measurements on the sea ice and on-board "FS Polarstern" include particle size and concentration (sub-micron to snow particle size), INP concentrations, and a range of chemical properties using aerosol filters. Sampling of snow on sea ice, brine, frost flowers will constrain the local source of SSA. Tethered balloon launches will yield information on the fate of particles formed near the sea ice surface as they get lofted to heights where clouds may form.

This collaborative project aims to explore large-N limits of natural horizontal Brownian motions on Lie groups of N x N matrices. It lies at the intersection of probability theory, differential geometry and group theory, and particularly combines the study of stochastic processes on Lie groups and the study of sub-Riemannian geometries in a novel way. Sub-Riemannian geometries model systems with constraints but set up such that the system moves over all parts of the phase space, that is, the constraints are flexible enough that any two points in the space can be connected by a curve satisfying the constraints. These type of geometries naturally appear in all sciences, ranging from constrained physical systems over motion planning in robotics to modelling the first layer of the visual cortex of the brain. For instance, the position of a vehicle in a field can be described by specifying the coordinates of its centre and the angle of rotation with respect to a reference line. In this three-dimensional parameter space, it is not possible to perform motions which correspond to a movement perpendicular to the direction of the wheels of the vehicle. However, by choosing suitable maneuvers it is still possible to reach any target position. Large-N limits of Brownian motions on Lie groups of N x N matrices have been actively studied. The analysis employs tools from free probability and the results have implications in random matrix theory. In these works, the Lie groups in considerations are equipped with a canonical Riemannian structure. We plan to now tackle the natural question of what can be said about the large-N limits of horizontal Brownian motions on Lie groups of N x N matrices where, instead of using a Riemannian structure, the Lie groups are equipped with canonical sub-Riemannian structures.

Antarctica is changing. In February 2022, sea ice around Antarctica reached the lowest area that has been observed since satellite records began in 1979. This marks the first time that the area of sea ice ice has been observed to shrink below 2 million square kilometres. Compared to the average minimum, the 2022 February minimum is missing an area of sea ice that is about three and a half times the size of the UK. Directly following on from the sea ice minimum, in March 2022 record air temperatures were recorded across much of East Antarctica, with some meteorological stations observing temperatures 40C warmer than normal. These unprecedented conditions were associated with a very intense 'atmospheric river', a narrow corridor of warm water vapour, bringing warm air and moisture to the high Antarctic Plateau. We do not know whether these extreme regional climatic events are just 'one offs', and highly unlikely to occur again, or whether they are an indication of how Antarctic climate will develop in the future. These recent extreme weather events and conditions in Antarctica have prompted fresh concern about how climate change in this remote region will impact Earth. The protection of coastlines around the world from the future rise in sea level from Antarctica requires a better understanding of how the weather of Antarctica will evolve over the coming century. Any loss of Antarctic ice mass as a result of weather changes may raise the sea level around the globe. SURFEIT will thus investigate how changing snow and radiation, or surface fluxes, over the coming century will affect Antarctic snow and ice. The international SURFEIT team will: (i) improve how polar clouds are represented in our climate models; (ii) use pre-existing, and new, observations alongside climate model output to help improve our understanding of changes in snowfall over Antarctica; (iii) ensure we can accurately predict small-scale and extreme-event weather changes; and (iv) improve how we link our earth and ice system model components together, so that we can make better predictions of when Antarctic ice may fracture, and so raise global sea level. Our work on improving snowfall and ice predictions will help us answer our overarching question 'How will changes in Antarctic surface fluxes impact global sea-level to 2100 and beyond?'