The Eskdalemuir Observatory is a UK national environmental observatory located near

Eskdalemuir Eskdalemuir is a civil parish and small village in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, with a population of 265.

Dumfries and Galloway Dumfries and Galloway (; ) is one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland, located in the western part of the Southern Uplands. It is bordered by East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and South Lanarkshire to the north; Scottish Borders to the no ...

, Scotland. Along with

Lerwick Lerwick ( or ; ; ) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010. It is the northernmost major settlement within the United Kingdom. Centred ...

and Hartland, Eskdalemuir is one of three permanent geomagnetic observatories in the United Kingdom. Built in 1904, its remote location was chosen to minimise electrical interference with geomagnetic instruments, which were relocated here from

Kew Observatory The King's Observatory (called for many years the Kew Observatory) is a Grade I listed building in Richmond, London. Now a private dwelling, it formerly housed an astronomical observatory, astronomical and Terrestrial magnetism, terrestrial mag ...

in London in 1908 after the spread of electric tramcars led to excessive electromagnetic interference there. Eskdalemuir Observatory - geograph

Purpose

The observatory is situated in the valley of the White Esk river at an altitude of , and so represents the climate of highland in northern Great Britain. It currently monitors: *Meteorological parameters *Solar radiation *Atmospheric pollution *The UK Geomagnetic field *Seismological activity The observatory is managed by the

British Geological Survey The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance Earth science, geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. ...

and the UK

Met Office The Met Office, until November 2000 officially the Meteorological Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather and climate service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and ...

Seismic measurements

A closer view of the Seismological Station - geograph

The area has a low background of seismic activity, so is ideal for these measurements. Shortly after 19:00 GMT on 21 December 1988, the observatory's

seismometer A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground displacement and shaking such as caused by quakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The out ...

s recorded the ground impact of

Pan Am Flight 103 Pan Am Flight 103 (PA103/PAA103) was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, the Boeing 747 "Clipper Maid of th ...

, which crashed into the nearby town of

Lockerbie Lockerbie (, ) is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, located in south-western Scotland. The 2001 Census recorded its population as 4,009. The town had an estimated population of in . The town came to international attention in December 1988 when ...

away after being destroyed by a bomb. The event registered 1.6 on the

Richter magnitude scale The Richter scale (), also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale, is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, and pr ...

. There is a second seismic array approximately north of the main observatory established by the

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). T ...

, which has been managed by Güralp Systems Ltd since 2002 on behalf of AWE Blacknest which provides the UK part of the international monitoring network of the

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a multilateral treaty to ban nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments. It was adopted by the United Nati ...

. This network allows covert nuclear tests to be detected via their seismic signatures. At Eskdalemuir it consists of an array covering , consisting of two intersecting lines of 10 pits containing seismometers, a seismological vault and a recording laboratory.

Historic atmospheric electricity measurements

Following the conventions of Kew Observatory, which preceded Eskdalemuir as a national geophysical laboratory,

atmospheric electricity Atmospheric electricity describes the electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrica ...

measurements formed a key part of the early operations. Atmospheric ion measurements were made by

Lewis Fry Richardson Lewis Fry Richardson, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (11 October 1881 – 30 September 1953) was an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist, and Pacifism, pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather ...

. As Eskdalemuir is a relatively clean site distant from major towns and cities, the atmospheric electricity measurements have been analysed for global signals which are typically obscured at urban sites. The measuring technology followed that of Kew in employing a Kelvin water dropper electrometer for potential gradient measurements, changing to a radioactive polonium probe during the 1930s. The Eskdalemuir potential gradient was found to be correlated with measurements made simultaneously on the Carnegie research ship.

Notable staff

*The meteorologist and mathematician

served as Superintendent at the Observatory between 1913 and 1918. *Dr Arthur Crichton Mitchell superintendent of the observatory 1916 to 1922 *Dr Douglas Haig McIntosh worked here 1953 to 1955.

References

External links

Eskdalemuir Observatory operations - BGS website
{{coord, 55, 18, 44, N, 3, 12, 22, W, display=title Buildings and structures completed in 1904 Geophysical observatories Meteorological observatories Seismological observatories, organisations and projects Pan Am Flight 103 Category B listed buildings in Dumfries and Galloway 1904 establishments in Scotland