The Southern Ocean, key to Earth's environmental system, is threatened by climate change. A new paper in Science by Dr Catarina Frazão Santos, Dr Lisa Wedding, and colleagues, details how climate-smart marine spatial planning can support Antarctic seascapes, with implications for the global ocean and human wellbeing.
News
Celebrating Excellence: Vice-Chancellor’s Awards Honour Outstanding Achievements in SoGE
The Vice-Chancellor’s Awards are a testament to excellence and innovation, and are a University-wide celebration of outstanding people. They recognise the achievements and celebrate success across the collegiate University, from academics and researchers to professional, technical and support staff.
The Economist: Siberia's heatwave would not have happened without climate change
This year's Arctic heatwave has had far-reaching consequences, writes the Economist, from shrinking sea ice, to wildfires, to a massive oil spill. Friederike Otto, co-lead of the World Weather Attribution initiative, discusses the game-changing impact of climate change on this extreme weather.
IN THE MEDIA
How Climate Science Moved Online
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the April 2020 meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was held online for this first time. Lisa Schipper, social scientist at the ECI and coordinating author of an IPCC report chapter about climate resilient development options, spoke to NPR about the challenges associated with working from home, particularly for female researchers.
IN THE MEDIA
Dry tropical forests may be more at risk than wet rainforests
Dry tropical forests are more vulnerable to the impacts of global warming than had been thought, according to new research from ECI's Ecosystems group, with wildlife and plants at severe risk of harm from human impacts. A new study, published in Nature Communications, found that areas with a drier climate have seen greater loss of biodiversity from global warming, the Guardian reports.
IN THE MEDIA
What's in a name? Belonging!
Dr Juan Pablo Orjuela has been working with low-income women in Itagüí, part of the Medellin metropolitan area (Colombia), but COVID-19 has brought new challenges on how to engage with communities in the midst of lockdown measures. Read his blog entry on the PEAKUrban website on how the co-creation of a group name and image has helped in the process.
IN THE MEDIA
Why Africa's heatwaves are a forgotten impact of climate change
Recent summers have demonstrated dramatically that heatwaves are not only deadly, but they are already being influenced by human-induced climate change. In this guest post for Carbon Brief, Luke Harrington and Friederike Otto explain why extreme heat events in sub-Saharan Africa are not routinely monitored, meaning that heat-related deaths are chronically underreported - putting even more people in danger.
IN THE MEDIA
Dr Raghav Pant Highly Commended in the 2020 Vice-Chancellor Innovation Awards
Congratulations to Dr Raghav Pant (Senior Research Associate, Environmental Change Institute) who has been Highly Commended in the Early Career category of the Vice-Chancellor Innovation Awards 2020 for his work on 'New modelling tools to help governments and decisions makers minimise the risks from infrastructure failures'
NEWS
Immediate action needed to stem the flow of plastic into the ocean, finds report
A new analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts and SYSTEMIQ, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, the University of Leeds, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Common Seas, found that the annual flow of plastic into the ocean could nearly triple by 2040. The release of this report coincides with the publication of 'Evaluating Scenarios Toward Zero Plastic Pollution', in the journal Science and co-authored by Richard Bailey (Professor of Environmental Systems).
NEWS
Dr Emma Howard awarded the Royal Meteorological Society's prestigious Malcolm Walker prize
Dr Emma Howard, recent doctoral graduate from the African Climate team in SoGE and member of the UMFULA research project, has been awarded the Royal Meteorological Society's prestigious Malcolm Walker prize.
NEWS
Pioneering food systems teaching programme steps into the virtual sphere
In response to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, the Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL) programme held its first online summer school to resounding success at the end of June 2020. IFSTAL is coordinated by the Food Systems Transformation Group within the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
NEWS
Reducing the carbon footprint of academic travel post COVID-19
Prior to the global pandemic, researchers identified an uncomfortable truth: the very meetings and events meant to support the fight against climate change were themselves causing vast greenhouse gas emissions through international air travel. Building on learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of Oxford researchers have identified new measures, published this week in the journal Nature, that may reduce the carbon footprint of conference travel by up to 90%.
NEWS
