Watch Dr Sebastian Engelstaedter provide an overview of the Climate Systems and Policy research cluster at the SEED 2015 event.
The Climate Systems and Policy research cluster aims to build on research excellence in three areas - physical climate and biogeochemical processes, impacts and adaptation to climate change, and mitigation policy and science.
| Physical climate and biogeochemical processes | Research focuses improving our understanding of fundamental processes in key Earth-system tipping elements and climate change hotspots, including mineral aerosols in the land-surface-atmosphere system, biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem dynamics in tropical forest systems, processes of variability and change in African climate, changes in global and regional hydrological cycles, and climate processes in the Himalaya and Andes. |
| Impacts and adaptation to climate change | Research aims to improve the scientific basis for impacts/adaptation assessment and decision making. This includes evaluation of fitness for purpose of climate model data, climate downscaling, development of novel methods for assessment of impacts of climate change, especially biodiversity and water resources, and adaptation, with a focus on robust decision making and challenges posed by large climate changes. |
| Mitigation policy and science | Attention is on more radical carbon reductions and shorter time scales, with major implications for both energy systems and management of carbon sinks, and on establishing stronger socio-political theoretical understanding of mitigation and governance at a range of scales from Earth-system to local community. |
Key research initiatives closely associated with the cluster include several national and international programmes including the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), Adaptation and Resilience in a Changing Climate (ARCC), Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS), UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium, the Oxford node of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, climateprediction.net, climateeducation.net, and components of major research programmes focused on Africa (e.g. CLIVAR VACS African Climate Atlas) and the Amazon (Pan-Amazonia). Until recently the School hosted the international project office of the Global Environmental Change and Food Security Programme (GECAFS) which closed in 2011.
Events
Latest Publications
- Slater, L.J., Khouakhi, A. and Wilby, R., (2019) River channel conveyance capacity adjusts to modes of climate variability. Nature Scientific Reports, 9. 12619.
- Buckland, C.E., Thomas, D.S.G. and Bailey, R.M. (2019) Complex disturbance‐driven reactivation of near‐surface sediments in the largest dunefield in North America during the last 200 years. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.
- Morel, A.C., Hirons, M., Adu Sasu, M., Quaye, M., Asare, R.A., Mason, J., Adu-Bredu, S., Boyd, E., McDermott, C.L., Robinson, E.J.Z., Straser, R., Malhi, Y. and Norris, K. (2019) The ecological limits of poverty alleviation in an African forest-agriculture landscape. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 3(57).
- Srivastava, A., Durcan, J.A. and Thomas, D.S.G. (2019) Analysis of late Quaternary linear dune development in the Thar Desert, India. Geomorphology, 344: 90-98.
- Fawcett, T., Webb, J., Reiss, S., Hawkey, D., and Mallaburn, P. (2019) Policy: delivering further and faster change in energy demand. In, Eyre, N. and Killip, G. (eds.) Shifting the focus: energy demand in a net zero UK. CREDS – Centre for Research in Energy Demand Solutions. 108 pp.
