Publication of the Month: June
High-Resolution Environmental Variability During Decomposition in a UK Humid Temperate Climate
This month’s Research Office pick is by Dr Paige Tynan, Senior Lecturer in Biosciences.
Understanding how environmental conditions influence decomposition is essential for forensic science, particularly when estimating the post-mortem interval (PMI). In this month's featured publication, Paige presents a high-resolution environmental dataset collected during a 12-week decomposition study in a UK humid temperate climate.
Using a weather station installed at the study site, environmental conditions were recorded every hour between May and August 2021. Variables included temperature, humidity, rainfall, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, dew point, and wind chill. This level of detail provides valuable insight into the dynamic environmental changes that occur throughout the decomposition process.
The study highlights the importance of continuous environmental monitoring, as short-term fluctuations can significantly influence decomposition rates and may be missed by lower-resolution datasets. By making the dataset openly available, Paige supports more robust and reproducible forensic taphonomy research and facilitate comparisons across different geographical regions and climates.
Alongside the environmental data, additional resources from the same study have been made available, including longitudinal photographs, thermal imaging data, and 3D models documenting decomposition over time. Together, these datasets provide a rich resource for researchers investigating the relationship between environmental conditions and decomposition.
This publication contributes to ongoing efforts to improve data availability and transparency within forensic science, providing an important resource for future research and methodological development.