climate

Grace de Souza's dissertation 'Convective-Permitting Model Projects Greater Reduction in Updraft Cores Over the Congo Basin' has been awarded 2nd place in Climate Change Research Group's 2023 Dissertation Prize.

Following devastating floods in 2020, five successive failed rainy seasons caused drought which exposed millions of people to acute food shortages in East Africa. The field project, MASIKA, is the first of its kind and aims to understand the atmospheric processes operating at the start the rainy season. 

2023 MSc graduate Ashwini Petchiappan has won the Alfred Russel Wallace Prize for her dissertation research on The Impact of Climatic Oscillations on Bird Migrations. The prize is awarded once per year by the Examinations Board for the MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management for an outstanding dissertation. 

The Kalahari is warming at over twice the global rate, with climate projections indicating a gradual drying of the Kalahari, leading to more intense droughts. These trends present a profound threat to communities who have lived there for millennia and to the unique desert ecosystems. Over Christmas and New Year, a team of researchers from SoGE and University of Cape Town travelled to the Kalahari to retrieve some of the first detailed atmospheric observations from inside the Kalahari Desert in a bid to understand these troublesome climate trends.

School of Geography Alumna Lucy Temple and Rose Aldridge’s award-winning short film, 'On the Brink', documents the dramatic effects of climate change on small glaciers in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland, aiming to connect viewers emotionally with the growing fragilities of the alpine environment.

Alumna Natalie Chung (MPhil 2021), founder of V'air Hong Kong, voyaged alongside accomplished deep ocean activist Dr Sylvia Earle to advocate for policies to protect nature's most important carbon sink - the Ocean.

Dr Lisa Wedding has been awarded the Cuthbert Peek Award for pioneering marine remote sensing research in the 2023 Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) honours.

MSc student, Raphaella Mascia, examines the unique challenges faced by students in Environment and Conservation, and the issues related to mental health, eco-stress, anxiety and grief.

Living on a Changing Planet is a new podcast series exploring people's emotional responses to climate change. Produced by Carter Powis (SoGE doctoral researcher and climate scientist), and Patrick Kennedy-Williams (a clinical psychologist), together they tackle the topic that's been missing from the climate conversation: whether you're an energy worker who's facing the loss of your job and ability to provide for your family, a youth activist afraid of what the future holds, or a nature-lover grieving the rapid ongoing destruction of our biosphere - how do you learn to live with it?