Raising awareness of current research and developments in the fields of climate science and natural hazards and translating these into real benefits for people and organisations.
We are happy to report that the achievements of Professor Jane Francis are being formally recognised by the University of Leeds through the award of an honorary degree. The pen portrait for Jane can be found below:
Professor Jane Francis (Doctor of Science), until recently Professor of Palaeoclimatology and Dean of the Faculty of Environment, is the director of the British Antarctic Survey. She has participated in numerous polar research expeditions and was awarded the Polar Medal for her contribution to British polar research in 2002. Her most recent research has focused on understanding past climate change during both greenhouse and icehouse periods, particularly in the Polar Regions.
Corruption is on the rise in South Asia and failure to tackle it will threaten the region’s economic progress, according to a recent article by Transparency International.
Here’s a guest post by Ekbal on the Geology for Global Development blog on how corruption directly results in greater deaths during earthquakes.
This short film captures the key messages and debates emerging from the first Southern Africa Adaptation Colloquium, held in November 2013.
The film was produced to make available the discussions to audiences that weren’t able to attend the Colloquium — particularly people working with local government in African cities.
A large amount of dust has been blown towards the UK from the Sahara Desert where strong winds have blown up sand into a dust storm.
The video below shows how the dust is blown up and carried to the UK. The dust, shown in pink within the red circle, is carried within clouds, shown in red, to the UK, where it falls within rain showers. (Video from the Met office)
Saharan dust is a contributing factor to air quality as well as pollution levels. The dust brings in pollution from Europe and the high pressure over the UK traps it in place. This has resulted in the highest smog alert warnings for London and much of southern UK.
Air pollution forecast for April 2nd 2014. Purple is very high air pollution, orange moderate and low pollution in green. Source: Defra
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said high to very high air pollution was expected across East Anglia, parts of south-east England and around the Humber on Tuesday. High levels of air pollution in parts of the UK are expected to last until the weekend.
Paul Hutcheon at the Met Office said “We usually see this happen several times a year when big dust storms in the Sahara coincide with southerly winds to bring that dust here.”
Defra has warned that adults and children with lung and heart problems, including older people, should avoid excessive strenuous activity for the next week or so. It also warned that “people with asthma may find they use their reliever inhaler more often”.
Two thirds of the world’s countries are more corrupt than not.
Transparency International is an international movement aiming to increase transparency, highlight and tackle global corruption. Since 1993 they have published annual reports on the level of international corruption. The figure above is a screenshot image of an interactive map of the world showing global corruption perception index.
The 2013 results show that on a scale where 0 = completely corrupt and 100 = no corruption; two thirds of the world’s countries score below 50!
No country has a perfect score however Denmark and new Zealand came joint top with a score of 91 making them the least corrupt countries in the world. The lowest place (most corrupt nations) was shared by Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia with a score of 8.
With a score of 76 the United Kingdom is 14th on the list of 177 nations and territories covered.
We are happy to report that the achievements of Professor Jane Francis are being formally recognised by the University of Leeds through the award of an honorary degree. The pen portrait for Jane can be found below:
CLIMATE AND GEOHAZARDS 