Chris Bell: Science

A Message from His Supervisor

It was my great privilege to be Chris's supervisor for his PhD and postdoc period. It is difficult for me to find the words to express what a great privilege it was. He was such a lovely person to work with, so enthusiastic, clever, friendly, funny?. I will miss him so much, and still expect to see his head pop round my door and hear his cheerful voice, asking if I have 5 minutes to look at a plot he'd just made or to discuss an idea. Chris achieved an enormous amount while he was here in Reading, with 2 scientific journal papers already published and several more on the go (which we will carry on with and complete in his memory). He was one of those rare people (OK, I mean men!) who could juggle several different things at once, and indeed he thrived on it. He was working on the influence of El Nino on the stratosphere, the effects of increased CO2 on the stratosphere, the influence of 11-year solar cycles on the stratosphere and at the Earth's surface, including weather patterns over Ireland (and the rest of the UK of course), the representation of ozone in climate models, how the 11-year solar cycle interacts with El Nino and alternating winds over the equator known as the quasi biennial oscillation?.. and so it went on, so many different topics. My role was mainly one of encouraging him for how well he was doing, keeping an eye on just how many things he was trying to do and making sure he was being realistic in how much he undertook! I remember my last conversation with him was about the importance of not taking on too much, and of taking a holiday sometime soon, because he was working so hard.

Chris was a great achiever and set himself a very high standard. I remember his long hours, often in the middle of the night, writing his PhD thesis. Not only was his thesis very good science, it was very well written too. Chris had a true gift of being an excellent scientist and yet was a really nice, down-to-earth person who could talk to people and write well. He would have gone all the way to professor, easily, and would have made a great teacher and research supervisor. We often joked together that I should watch out, as he would soon be after my job!

One really good example of how well he was doing was a recent review of his latest paper. The process is that you write up the results of your work in a paper (10-15 pages long), send it to a journal (in this case it was the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society), who then send it to 2-3 scientists (world-wide) for their opinion on whether the paper is worth publishing or not. The (anonymous) reviews are then sent to the author, with a 'reject', 'major revision' or 'minor revision' decision, depending on how good the paper is. It is almost unheard of for a paper to be published without some form of revision required - and yet one of his reviewers suggested just that: 'This is a very nice paper, and it was a pleasure to read. It is well written and clearly describes an interesting set of numerical experiments that examine changes in Northern Hemisphere stratospheric variability for increases in CO2. I seldom say this, but I think this paper is acceptable in its current form and no changes are needed'. I have personally never received such a good review! It is an exceptional testament to how good a scientist Chris was. I was so proud of Chris that day he told me about it. Although he often came across as extremely confident, in many ways that was simply a good façade he had developed and found that it worked for him. He was actually incredibly modest - for example, he told me about the review, but didn't actually send me a copy of it, so I had to go seek it out to include it here. Also, he was always careful to practice his talks before giving them, because he wanted to get them absolutely right. I spent many a happy hour going over the 'big science issues' with him before his talks, during which he often showed a lack of confidence and vulnerability that was endearing, because he did not try to hide it. I will miss so much these many facets to his personality. I am at a loss for words now, and can only say that I join you in feeling the great pain that his death has brought.

I hope the many messages in this book help to keep his memory alive for you all. As well as this book, a memorial bench is planned for the grounds of Reading University, near the Meteorology Department building, a special football match was held in his memory (29th June 2010) and there are plans to have this as an annual event, with a special trophy for the winning team. A minute's silence was held in the department for Chris (21st June 2010), at the annual meeting of the National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) in Manchester (5th July), at the SOLARIS meeting in Berlin (15th July) and I also dedicated my lecture to him at the quadrennial meeting of the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP) conference in Berlin (12-16th July 2010) with ~250 attendees. Lesley Gray

His Reputation in Science

For those who are unclear of the paper publication process. In order to successfully publish in a journal your paper must be reviewed by expects in the field. These reviewers are anonymous. The following is an anonymous reviewer's comment on Chris' paper that appeared (posthumously) in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. We have no idea who the reviewer was, but we thank them for their kind words and excellent scientific judgement (also mentioned in Lesley's passage above):

'This is a very nice paper, and it was a pleasure to read. It is well written and clearly described an interesting set of numerical experiments that examine the changes in NH stratospheric variability for increases in CO2. I seldom say this, but I think this paper is acceptable in its current form and no changes are necessary.'