Daylight Insights

Daylight measurement is of great importance in many different disciplines, ranging from human health to architectural design. However all too often there is little cross-talk between disciplines, and we lost a vital opportunity to learn from each other and improve our understanding and effectiveness of our daylight measurements. In this webinar we bring together four speakers from different fields to share their knowledge on daylight measurement, how they do it and why.

FLYER

Speakers:

Dr Manuel Spitschan
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

Light exposure profoundly affects human physiology and behaviour. With the non-visual effects of light being a key area of investigation in chronobiology, sleep medicine and beyond, an understanding of natural light and the physiological signal it generates can inform research in this area. Here, I will discuss (1) our understanding of the regular properties of daylight and (2) ways and methods to measure and characterise daylight from a visual and circadian perspective.

Prof. Brian Norton
Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork and TU Dublin, Ireland

Measuring daylight involves weighting an incident measured solar spectrum over a particular wavelength range corresponding to visual and non-visual responses. This presentation will discuss factors that can affect this seemingly simple process and the validitity of the use of particular daylight data outside its original measurement context . It will invite discussion on whether there are aspects of daylight and the wider environment that also need to be concurrently measured to fully understand causes and effects.

Prof. Ann Webb
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

The discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985 led to sudden interest in measurements of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation, due to the potential for enhanced UV radiation at the surface and its attendant impacts on numerous forms of life, including human health. As measurements systems were deployed around the world it soon became apparent that there was potential for large disparities between data from different systems. This is the story of how those disparities were reduced.

Philip Butlin
School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, UK

As photosynthetic organisms, plants depend on light for normal growth. However, beyond its utilisation in energy production, light also provides important cues to plants which inform them about their location both in space and time. In response to these signals, plants are able to plastically alter the course of their development to best suit their environment. In this talk, I will discuss a classic example of one such plastic response that is studied in the Halliday Lab, known as the ‘shade avoidance syndrome’. I will focus on how plants determine when to initiate such responses, how they are shaped by variations in their light environment, and why our understanding of spectra in different ecological habitats is important.

Moderation:

Dr Paul O’Mahoney
School of Medicine, University of Dundee, UK

Previous webinars in this series:

Twilight Talk – How the Sun paints the Sky
24 August 2020, online
With Robert Fosbury, emeritus astronomer at the European Southern Observatory and an honorary professor at the Institute of Ophthalmology at UCL, UK
Moderated by Manuel Spitschan, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

Twilight Talk – Illuminating circadian circuits
10 August 2020, online
With Tiffany Schmidt, Department of Neurobiology, Northwestern University, USA
Moderated by Manuel Spitschan, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK