This livestream is available online from Gresham College to Basingstoke Science subscribers.

**ADVANCE BOOKING AND PAYMENT IS REQUIRED FOR THIS TALK.**
**More details and booking instructions on the Gresham web site:**

**[https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/life-support](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/life-support)**

**SUMMARY**

#### Part of:

[Notes from a Large Planet: a citizen’s guide to the Earth](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/large-planet)
Planet Earth is an intricate and interconnected system, with some fundamental rules that we usually ignore. But we are part of our planet, not separate to it or just perched on top of it. This lecture will consider the two primary rules of Earth: that energy continually flows through the system (in from the Sun and then out again to space) and that matter/atoms must be continually recycled and use these to build up an outsider’s view of our planet.

**The livestream will go live at 5.55pm, and the introduction will begin at 6.00pm. If you register but miss the livestream, the video will be available to you via the same link for two weeks after the event date.**

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Bob Clifford

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**Dr Helen Czerski** is a physicist and oceanographer with a passion for science, sport, books, creativity, hot chocolate and investigating the interesting things in life. 

She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at [University College London](https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/42545-helen-czerski) and her research focus is the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from ocean to atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe) and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. 

Helen has been a regular science presenter on the BBC for 15 years, covering the physics of the natural world in BBC2 landmark documentaries (including ‘Orbit’, ‘Operation iceberg’ and ‘Supersenses’), and the physics of everyday life in a range of BBC4 documentaries (including ‘From ice to fire: The incredible science of temperature’, ‘Sound waves: The symphony of physics’, and ‘Colour: The spectrum of science’, along  with many others). She currently co-hosts BBC Radio 4’s flagship climate and environment programme Rare Earth. 

Helen's first book Storm in a Teacup won the Italian Asimov Prize and the Louis J. Battan Author prize from the American Meteorological Society. Blue Machine won the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. She was awarded the Institute of Physics Gold Medal in 2018 for her work on physics communication, and an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association in 2020. She has been a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich since 2018, and was one of the 2020 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturers, giving her Lecture on the topic of the ocean. 

Gresham College: "Earth – Our Planetary Life Support System"

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