University of Bristol – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

The Cabot Institute for the Environment heads to COP30

Posted on November 7, 2025November 7, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

COP30 attendees from the Cabot Institute for the Environment. Left to right: Filipe Franca, Alice Venn, Laurence Hawker, Karen Tucker.

We interview the four academic experts who will be attending COP30 in Belem, Brazil, from the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment. We ask them what their main focus will be at the COP and what they’re most looking forward to, from running a side event with indigenous partners, to providing free legal advice to developing country delegations…

Dr Karen Tucker (School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies)

What is your area of research?

I research the ways in which Indigenous peoples and their knowledges are included (or not) in environmental policies and related programmes. A particular focus, at the moment, is the ways in which climate mitigation policies impact on Indigenous peoples, and the ways they can better support Indigenous knowledges, economies and rights.

What will be your main focus at COP30?

I will be presenting some work I’ve been developing with Indigenous Mapuche Pehuenche partners and Chilean forest scientists at an official UNFCCC side event. I co-organised the event with my colleague in SPAIS, Katharina Richter, and Indigenous and NGO partners in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and the UK. As well as this, I plan to attend events on Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous leadership in climate governance, and on the connections between forests, biodiversity and climate governance.

What is the main reason you are attending COP? What are you looking forward to?

As well as an opportunity to learn about and contribute to discussions on climate policy as it relates to my specific areas of expertise, attending COP30 will hopefully allow me to continue developing conversations with partners and potential audiences for my research. This is my second COP, and I’m excited to see how policymakers respond to the symbolism and experience of attending a climate conference in the Amazon!

Karen will be running a side event Carbon markets, forests and Indigenous alternatives in the Blue Zone of COP30 on 13 November 2025. Find out more about the event.

Dr Alice Venn (School of Law)

What is your area of research?

I research legal responses to the climate crisis and I’m interested in how the UN climate regime can respond better to the needs of countries and communities on the frontlines of climate change. I explore human rights and climate justice in this process, thinking about how the decisions taken can be made fairer and more representative of those who are most severely impacted.

What will be your main focus at COP30?

I will be working as a liaison officer with the charity, Legal Response International, who provide free legal advice to developing country delegations and civil society groups participating in the climate negotiations. Their work aims to address the inequality between different countries’ negotiating teams, bolstering the legal capacity of countries facing the most severe climate impacts. For me, this will involve meeting with delegates and assisting the team in researching and drafting advice for the requests that come in.

I will also be following the loss and damage and just transition negotiation streams closely as my research centres around these topics. I’ll then share notes and updates with the charity team to draft a summary of the COP outcomes.

What is the main reason you are attending COP? What are you looking forward to?

I’m really looking forward to attending COP30 as although I’ve been researching international climate law for over a decade now, this will be the first time that I’ve attended a COP in person. Working with LRI offers a fantastic opportunity to put my research expertise into practice in an impactful way. I’m also excited to see how the recent International Court of Justice opinion on climate change will influence the discussions.

Dr Filipe Machado França (School of Biological Sciences)

What is your area of research?

Our research area is ecology and environmental sciences. We study insects (dung beetles, butterflies, moths, and bees) to measure nature health in tropical forests. We also work in close collaboration with multiple stakeholders (e.g. policymakers, park managers, local and traditional communities) to co-develop research and guidelines for conservation strategies and environmental practices and policies.

What will be your main focus at COP30?

I would like to engage on activities and discussions / negotiations involving climate-biodiversity relationships, with a particular focus on National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions for countries of interest (e.g. Brazil, Ghana, Malaysia, and the UK).

What is the main reason you are attending COP? What are you looking forward to?

I have been to COP16 in Cali (November 2024), but only with access to the green zone. I contributed to a workshop, which was an excellent opportunity to build new relationships and understanding other initiatives integrating science to decision-making.

COP30 is being held in the country I was born, the ecosystem I’ve been studying for over 15 years, and in the city where I currently have multiple projects and project partners. I am looking forward to the opportunity of having access to the blue zone for the first time, being able to observe negotiations, and engage with multiple and internation stakeholders that also have interest on integrating science and decision-making in the context of climate change and biodiversity in tropical regions.

I am very thankful for this opportunity. As a Brazilian, it will be an honour to receive the team in Brazil. I also hope I can help with anything others might need during their time there.

Watch Filipe talk more about his Cabot Institute funded research in Amazonia on YouTube.

Laurence Hawker (School of Geographical Sciences)

What is your area of research?

Making global scale maps of where people are most likely to live in the future (until 2100) for various future scenarios. I am also interested in researching risk of already displaced people from climate hazards.

What will be your main focus at COP30?

Networking with members of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), Integrated Impact Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), IOM and UNHCR. I am also keen to meet with policy makers and hear about their concerns for the future and how future maps of population can be best utilised. I want to participate in events primarily on focussed on cities and displaced people. I am also fascinated to observe issue areas and negotiation streams, especially to learn how the future population maps could possibly help inform climate reparations / people at risk.

What is the main reason you are attending COP? What are you looking forward to?

Talking to people across academia, NGOs and governments so we can shape our future population maps to be most useful to the most people. As we are at the early stages of the project, it is so invaluable to get these insights. I am very thankful for this opportunity, especially for someone like me at the early stage of their career.

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COP30 is taking place between 10 and 21 November 2025.

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This post was created by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Are you a journalist looking for climate experts for COP30? We’ve got you covered

Posted on October 16, 2025October 24, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts at the University of Bristol. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via press-office@bristol.ac.uk.

Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP30

We will have four academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP30 who will be available for media interviews. These are: Dr Alice Venn (climate law, loss and damage, just transition), Dr Filipe França (Amazon rainforest changes, deforestation, biodiversity), Dr Laurence Hawker (population mapping, flooding, climate hazards) and Dr Karen Tucker (indigenous knowledges). We will also have several academics attending virtually: Dr Alix Dietzel, Dr Katharina Richter, Dr Ailish Craig, Dr Ruby Lieber, and Stefan Zylinski.

Read more about our participation at COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/

Action for Climate Empowerment & Children and Youth

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist.

Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable.

Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.

Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience.

Climate finance / Loss and damage

Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change.

Dr Katharina Richter – an expert in sufficiency-based, postgrowth climate change mitigation approaches and the environmental justice aspects of global energy transitions. Her regional expertise is in Latin America, focussing on sustainable and equitable development in times of climate crisis, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of critical raw materials extraction on biodiverse, water scarce and/or indigenous territories, and indigenous alternatives to growth-based development such as Buen Vivir. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.

Dr Josephine Walker – health economic modelling.

Climate science / Adaptation and resilience / Mitigation

Dr Laurence Hawker – expert on refugees, flooding, population mapping, displaced people, hazards. Laurence will be at COP30 between 17 and 21 November 2025.

Dr Ailish Craig – expert in improving climate services and climate adaptation across Southern Africa. Ailish will be attending COP30 virtually.

Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths.

Professor Lizzie Kendon – Lizzie is a Scientific Manager and Met Office Science Fellow at the Met Office and University of Bristol. She is an expert in using climate models to understand future changes in high impact weather events.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Daniela is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair.

Professor Dan Lunt – expert on past climate change, with a focus on understanding how and why climate has changed in the past and what we can learn about the future from the past. Dan is also a Lead Author on IPCC AR6.

Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing.

Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide.

Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol.

Professor Guy Howard – expertise in building resilience and supporting adaptation in water systems, sanitation, health care facilities, and housing. Expert in wider infrastructure resilience assessment.

Dr Ryerson Christie – expert in human security, peacebuilding, and natural disasters.

Dr Emily Vosper – hurricane and climate science expert.

Climate techonology

Dr Ce Zhang – expert in environmental data science including Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Geospatial Data Mining and Modelling, Landscape Pattern and Process Modelling, Remotely Sensed Image Analysis and their Applications.

Climate change and health

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.

Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health.

Dr Adrian Flint – expert in poverty, sustainable development, disease and political economy.

Dr Josephine Walker – health economic modelling.

Just transition

Dr Alix Dietzel – climate justice and climate policy expert. Focusing on the global and local scale and interested in how just the response to climate change is and how we can ensure a just transition. Alix will be attending COP30 virtually.

Dr Ed Atkins – expert on environmental and energy policy, politics and governance and how they must be equitable and inclusive. Also interested in local politics of climate change policies and energy generation and consumption.

Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP30 between 10 to 15 November 2025.

Land Use / Forests / Nature / Food

Dr Filipe França – expert on changes in tropical Amazonia forests including biodiversity, logging, land use etc. Filipe will be in the Blue Zone of COP30 from 10 to 15 November 2025.

Dr Jo House – expert on land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy), and implications of science for policy. Previously Government Office for Science’s Head of Climate Advice.

Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples

Dr Katharina Richter – expert in decolonial environmental politics and equitable development in times of climate crises. Also an expert on degrowth and Buen Vivir, two alternatives to growth-based development from the Global North and South. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Net Zero / Energy / Renewables

Dr Sam Williamson – sustainable and equitable energy systems.

Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities.

Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices.

Oceans

Professor Steve Simpson – expert marine biology and fish ecology, with particular interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, conservation and management.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Daniela is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Pollution

Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.

Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries

Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes.

Dr Jagannath Biswakarma – expert in water quality, pollution and treatment. Water contamination.

Cities

Dr Ges Rosenberg – investigates how ‘systems’ approaches (‘systems thinking’ and ‘systems engineering’) can be applied to structure socio-technical problems, and to design and analyse a wide range of engineering solutions and policy interventions, with specific application to infrastructure and city futures.
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This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Summer long balls? A health expert explains why hot weather can be tough on testicles

Posted on August 1, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The phrase “summer long balls” might sound like locker-room slang, but it’s increasingly being mentioned on social media and online forums as a seasonal curiosity. In hot weather, men’s scrotums which contain their testicles can appear looser or more pendulous – hence the name.

Male readers may have noticed how the testes sometimes seem to hang lower in the summer, yet retreat upwards with the slightest cooling breeze. (I’ll stick with the term testes for anatomical accuracy, although we all know the slang terms are many and varied.)

While you may think of rising and falling as the domain of soufflés, when it comes to testes, their ability to move up and down is a key part of an elegant, biological temperature-control system.

For some, low-hanging testes are simply a cosmetic issue affecting swimwear choices or confidence, but others can suffer discomfort. Supportive underwear may help, although finding the right fit might require more effort than your average trip to Calvin Klein.

To understand what’s going on in male bodies, we need to go back to the beginning. Both testes and ovaries start life in the abdomen and migrate downward. But whereas the journey for ovaries stops in the pelvis, testes go further, exiting the abdominal cavity entirely to reside in the scrotum – a move that’s crucial for sperm production.

The testes produce and mature sperm cells and generate androgens, such as testosterone, which govern sexual development and behaviour. These processes are temperature-sensitive. Inside the pelvis is too warm for optimal sperm production – hence the descent to the cooler scrotum, usually in teenage years when your “balls drop”.

But to reach the scrotum, testes must pass through layers of the abdominal wall. Sometimes this journey doesn’t go as planned, resulting in an undescended testis, where one (or both) remain stuck in the abdomen or groin. Surgery may be required to correct this.

Even when testes do land in the right place, they don’t stay still. The scrotum and surrounding tissues adjust their position in response to temperature. That’s where the cremasteric muscle comes in. Found within the spermatic cord, it can contract and pull the testes closer to the body when needed – for warmth and perhaps protection.

One strange but testable reflex? Try stroking the inner thigh. If functioning normally, the testis on that side will rise slightly. This reflex can also be affected by neurological disease or testicular torsion, a surgical emergency.

The dartos muscle, located in the scrotal wall, plays a similar role. When temperatures drop it contracts, drawing the testes up for warmth. In heat, it relaxes – lowering the testes and helping them cool off.

Fertility issues

This thermal sensitivity is critical for fertility. Sustained overheating can impair sperm quality, which is why an undescended testis stuck in the abdomen or groin requires an operation.

Similarly, men who are struggling to conceive may be advised to avoid tight underwear or cycling shorts, switch to looser boxers, and reduce time spent cycling because of saddle friction.

The heat, pressure and tight fit of padded cycling shorts have all been suggested as potential risks to sperm health – though the evidence remains inconclusive. It’s not necessarily the padding but rather the compression and sustained heat in the groin area that may affect testicular function.

Temperature regulation doesn’t stop there. The pampiniform plexus, a network of veins around the testicular artery, acts like a radiator. It draws heat from arterial blood to cool it before it reaches the testes, preventing overheating.

Sometimes, these veins swell into a varicocele — a condition often described as feeling like a “bag of worms”. It becomes more noticeable when standing and affects around 15% of men. While often harmless, this can also affect fertility through loss of heat regulation. Some patients may also notice a dull ache in the testes, particularly after exercise or at the end of the day.

So, “summer long balls” are rooted in real physiology. During hot weather, a relaxed dartos muscle and loose scrotal skin allow the testes to hang lower – sometimes enough to notice a visible difference. If that’s true for you, this isn’t a malfunction but your body doing exactly what it’s supposed to. While this condition might sound like something from a comedy sketch, it’s actually a sign your reproductive system is working as nature intended.

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This blog is written by Dr Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Our laser technique can tell apart elephant and mammoth ivory – here’s how it may disrupt the ivory trade

Posted on May 13, 2024May 13, 2024 by adele.hulin

In recent years, the global trade in elephant ivory has faced significant restrictions in an effort to protect dwindling elephant populations. Many countries have stringent controls on the trade of elephant ivory. The sale of mammoth ivory, sourced primarily from long-extinct species, however, remains unregulated.

But it’s a significant challenge for customs and law enforcement agencies to distinguish between ivory from extinct mammoths and living elephants. This is a process that is both time-consuming and requires destroying the ivory.

Now our new study, published in PLOS ONE, presents a major breakthrough – using a well known laser technique to tell mammoth and elephant ivory apart.

Our results couldn’t come soon enough. The number of African elephants has dramatically declined from approximately 12 million a century ago to about 400,000 today.

Annually, over 20,000 elephants are poached for ivory, primarily in Africa. This decline not only disrupts ecological balance, but also diminishes biodiversity. Ultimately, it highlights the urgent need for conservation efforts to protect these species.

The hunt for mammoth ivory is also a problem. The new regulations are leading to a rise in the modern-day “mammoth hunter”. These are people who deliberately set out to excavate mammoth remains from the Siberian permafrost in the summer months.

Driven by the lucrative market for mammoth ivory, these hunters undertake expeditions in remote Arctic regions, where permafrost melting is accelerated by climate change. This has made previously inaccessible mammoth tusks more reachable.

Mammoth fossils being unearthed. Malachi Jacobs/Shutterstock

This activity not only has commercial implications. It also raises significant ethical and environmental concerns. That’s because it disturbs preserved ecosystems and involves the extraction of resources that have great value to paleontological science.

Laser insights

Our study from the University of Bristol, in collaboration with Lancaster University and the Natural History Museum, introduces a potential game-changer. We use a non-invasive laser technique known as Raman spectroscopy to identify the origin of a piece of ivory.

The method works by analysing the biochemical makeup of the ivory, which consists primarily of mineralised tissue composed of collagen (the flexible organic component) and hydroxyapatite (a hard inorganic mineral, containing calcium).

Raman spectroscopy is a well established technique. It has previously demonstrated applications that range from identifying whisky, studying archeological human bones from the Mary Rose ship, understanding how turkey tendons develop and to even identifying the purity of meat sold by the food industry.

The technique works by directing a laser light onto the ivory sample. The energy from the light is temporarily absorbed by the bonds between molecules in the sample, and then almost instantly re-released. This released light scatters back with more or less energy than the initial laser light sent to the sample.

This carries information about the molecular vibrations within the material – providing a unique pattern of light for each type of ivory. The analysis involves studying the differences between these unique fingerprints.

Our study analysed elephant and mammoth samples provided by the Natural History Museum, London. It demonstrated that not only could the technique distinguish between mammoth and elephant ivory, it could also spot differences in ivory from living elephant species.

In fact, we successfully differentiated between ivory from the extinct woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and two species of elephants still walking the Earth today (Loxodonta and Elephas maximus).

Important implications

This method offers several advantages over traditional techniques for ivory analysis. Raman spectroscopy is non-destructive and can be performed quickly. This makes it an ideal tool for customs officials who need to make rapid decisions. Our study was conducted on a benchtop spectrometer (a device which breaks up light by wavelength) within a laboratory. But research suggests cheaper and portable, handheld Raman spectrometers could offer equivalent results.

Further research will be needed to refine the technique and expand the database of ivory signatures. We are working with Worldwide Wildlife Hong Kong and the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office to develop this technique.

More data will ultimately enhance the accuracy of species identification. It could potentially help us detect even finer distinctions – such as the age of the ivory or specific environmental conditions where the elephants or mammoths lived.

There are also other non-destructive techniques, such as X-Ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which could be used as a complementary method to identify the geographical region from which the ivory was taken.

As this technique becomes more accessible and widely adopted, it may become key in global conservation efforts, helping to prevent the illegal trade of elephant ivory.

This article was written by Dr Rebecca Shepherd, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Introducing our IPCC blog series

Posted on July 26, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

This blog is the first part of a series from the Cabot Institute for the Environment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6). This post is an introduction to the blog series, explaining what we’re aiming to do here and with a glossary of some climate change terms that come up in the later posts. Look out for links to the rest of the series this week.

What is the IPCC?

The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Formed in 1988 by scientists concerned about the state of the global climate, they’ve been publishing assessment reports on the climate to advise policymakers and governments to act. This year they published their 6th assessment report (AR6), which has been described as their ‘starkest warning’ about the dangers of climate change. The report was built up of 3 Working Groups and over 2800 experts representing 105 countries covering different aspects, from the base science to the sociological impacts of a climate crisis. Alongside their assessment reports, the IPCC also publish special reports on key issues to explore them in more detail. These topics have included Land Use, Impact on the Ocean and Cryosphere and further clarifications on the goal of mitigating 1.5°C global warming.

The IPCC are the most trusted climate group worldwide, with their work being used in policy decisions all over the world.

What are the three Working Groups?

Each of the working groups focuses on a different part of the climate story, looking at causes, effects, and solutions.

• Working Group 1: The Physical Science Basis (WGI)

• Working Group 2: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (WGII)

• Working Group 3: Mitigation of Climate Change (WGIII)

What is this blog series covering?

The full reports are well over 1000 pages each, with many chapters, subchapters, and footnotes to wade through. As previously mentioned, the full report is split into the domains of the working groups.

Each report from the Working Groups is then filtered down into its own Summary for Policy Makers, which is still dense and features a lot of explanation of evidence. This is further broken down into the headline statements that get released to the press. Even at this level, it’s hard for ordinary members of the public to take the time to read all the evidence and digest the key points.

The aim of this campaign is to distil the key points in each Working Group report in a short, easily understood, and shareable blog as a tool for public outreach. As well as this, the campaign will feature voices from across the Cabot Institute for the Environment including IPCC authors from each of the working groups.

It’s a nearly impossible job trying to filter down the output of thousands of experts into a digestible snippet, but hopefully readers will come away more informed about the IPCC reports and the climate crisis than before.

This week, we’ll be sharing my report summaries here on the Cabot Institute for the Environment blog as well as on Twitter and LinkedIn, starting this Wednesday [27 July] on the output of Working Group I: The Physical Science basis. Keep an eye out for it!

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This blog campaign was written by Cabot Institute Communications Assistant Andy Lyford, an MScR Student studying Paleoclimates and Climate modelling on the Cabot Institutes’ Masters by Research in Global Environmental Challenges program at the University of Bristol.

Hydrological hazards across timescales

Posted on June 6, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

University of Bristol – Met Office Academic Partnership Meeting

From droughts and floods to water quality and water resource management, researchers at the University of Bristol and the Met Office are world-leaders in climate and hydrological research. Building on the new academic partnership between Bristol and the Met Office, the goal of this meeting was to foster new collaborations and strengthen existing partnerships between Bristol and the Met Office on the topic of weather, climate and hydrology.

In total, we had 29 attendees attend the workshop, with 10 from the Met Office, 17 from the University of Bristol and 2 from Fathom including weather and climate scientists, catchment hydrologists and flood modellers at a wide range of career stages.

The meeting explored two key themes, the first half of the meeting focused on ‘Exploiting convection permitting weather and climate models for flood and drought prediction’, while the second half focused on ‘Quantifying uncertainty in hydrological projections’. For each theme, there were two short plenary talks that highlighted existing research across the Met Office and University of Bristol and then a presentation focused on an exciting piece of research covering topics on exploiting convection permitting models for flood and drought prediction (Lizzie Kendon) and towards large ensembles of km-scale precipitation simulations using AI (Peter Watson and Henry Addison). We also had eight lighting talks on topics ranging from tropical cyclones to pan-tropics convection-permitting climate simulations to compound wind and flood risk.

Alongside the talks, there was time for attendees to discuss ideas and opportunities focused around five key discussion topics; uncertainty estimation, compound events and multi-hazard coupling, evaluation of weather and climate driving information for hydrology, exploiting higher resolution capabilities for hydrology and from hydrological predictions to ‘services’.

Overall, the meeting was a success and we appreciated an in person meeting fuelled by coffee, cake and cheese! Tangible outputs from the day included contributions on a NERC proposal, making new connections, ideas for future collaborations, sharing of data and methodologies and the foundations for a collaborative climate and hydrology community.

Further details from the meeting can be requested from Gemma Coxon (gemma.coxon@bristol.ac.uk).

Prehistoric Planet: TV show asked us to explore what weather the dinosaurs lived through

Posted on May 30, 2022April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

When conjuring up images of when dinosaurs ruled the planet we often think of hot and humid landscapes in a world very different from our own. However, the new TV series Prehistoric Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, shows dinosaurs living and indeed thriving in many types of environments, including colder regions where snowstorms, freezing fog and sea-ice were commonplace.

When the show’s producers first approached us to help understand the kinds of weather and environment that dinosaurs lived in before being wiped out around 66 million years ago, it prompted us to tackle a problem that has existed in palaeoclimate modelling for decades. That was, when scientists like us used computers to simulate, or “model”, the climate of prehistoric Earth, the models tended to make the poles much colder than evidence from fossils and rocks suggested they had actually been.

For the TV series, not only have we improved our models, but we have run the computer programmes for longer than anybody else has ever done to get the models as close to ancient “reality” as possible.

Prehistoric Planet depicts CGI dinosaurs based on the latest research.
AppleTV+, CC BY-NC-SA

The producers, the BBC’s Natural History Unit, needed to know about the weather so they could film “real world” locations similar to those that existed in the past where dinosaurs lived. But most of what we know about the climate that long ago comes from indirect “proxy” evidence, such as leaf fossils and traces of certain chemicals in rocks, which can only reconstruct the average climate over decades or centuries. This is where the narrative of a much hotter and more humid Cretaceous world comes from.

This narrative isn’t exactly wrong, but it doesn’t tell the whole story since weather and climate behave differently. For instance, even in today’s warming world a place like Texas, largely hot and humid, recently experienced widespread snowfall. Geologists a million years from now will spot the sudden global warming – but not the freak snowstorm. Nonetheless, modelling the the prehistoric equivalent of these snowstorms is important since we know warmer worlds will experience greater weather extremes. And these extremes will have largely determined which regions were completely inhospitable to dinosaurs.

Surface wind speed and precipitation through a typical year 69m years ago. An index of 1 means no visibility beyond 10 metres.

How do we know what the weather was like?

Unfortunately, although fossils give us many clues as to past climate, most cannot directly tell us what the weather was on a day to day basis.

So, for a given place on Earth, how do we know what the weather was on, say, May 27 some 66 million years ago? To do this we need to employ a computer simulation of the climate, similar to the ones used to look at future climate change today. These models are based on fundamental physical and biological processes which remain constant with time. It is therefore possible to adjust them for ancient worlds, even if we don’t know precise details like where or how high the mountains were, or exactly how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere.

We can then check these models using some of the ancient climate proxies, such as fossilised leaves, coral or rocks which contain traces of what conditions were like at the time. If our model matches up with the proxies – and it did – then we can be confident it is simulating typical weather at the time.

So what did we learn from modelling the climate of 66m years ago?

Our model found there would have been intense blizzards in Antarctica, for instance, “category six” hurricanes (something we are likely to see in our lifetimes) buffeting the mid and low latitudes and extensive, ever present, fog banks creating murky winters under polar cloud caps.

In a warmer world the water cycle is intensified over the poles. This meant more water in the air, and large parts of the planet would have been very foggy almost all the time (Source: modelling work by the authors)

This doesn’t immediately sound like a dinosaur-friendly environment. However, the old misconception that dinosaurs were cold blooded, thus requiring a warm climate for survival has for the most part already been dismissed. The new paradigm is that dinosaurs were warm blooded, and could to some extent regulate their internal temperature, like mammals do today.

This would be essential to survive large swings in temperature, driven by varied weather patterns, particularly in the polar regions. Our modelling therefore backs up recent fossil discoveries which show that some dinosaur species were cold-adapted, could see in low light conditions (useful in those huge fog banks), and thrived year-round near the poles.

Dinosaur in snow — *Pachyrhinosaurus* surviving and thriving.
AppleTV+, CC BY-NC-SA

The Prehistoric Planet scenes with the chilly Pachyrhinosaurus were set in Alaska, and demonstrate why the show wanted check its accuracy with climate models. We have an idea what the conditions would have been like there 66m years ago thanks to detailed fossils of plants, dinosaurs and other animals, yet the old models would have predicted intensely-cold and lifeless tundra.

Our model instead matches up with the fossil evidence, and predicts forests right up to the margins of the Arctic Ocean at 82°N – much further north than any trees today. In the summer, dinosaur food would have been abundant, but in the long dark winters it would have been more difficult to find, particularly as both fossils and modelling suggests it was so foggy.

Dinosaurs survived for a remarkable 165 million years. Tyrannosaurus Rex lived much closer to present day humans than it did to Stegosauruses, for instance. They managed to survive so long because they were resilient and adaptable to changeable environmental conditions, much like mammals are today. Our work for Prehistoric Planet shows that they were able to survive through greater extremes in temperature, stormier weather, and more extreme droughts than humans have experienced – so far.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Alex Farnsworth, Senior Research Associate in Meteorology, and Paul Valdes, Professor of Physical Geography, University of Bristol; and Robert Spicer, Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, The Open University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Mock COP26: Convincing, Cooperating and Collaborating

Posted on May 26, 2022April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

Glasgow COP26 presentation, preliminary discussion, and negotiation rounds 1 & 2

On 11th November at 10am around 60 A-level students from schools across Bristol gathered to participate in this year’s Mock COP26, hosted by Jack Nicholls, Emilia Melville, and Camille Straatman from the Cabot Institute for the Environment. After a resounding success from the first Mock COP, which took place online in March 2021, there was real excitement and anticipation building for the in-person event which would be held in the Great Hall of the Wills Memorial Building.

The morning kicked off with an engaging presentation by Jack, Emilia, and Camille, outlining the objectives of the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow. There had been much discussion surrounding the COP in the public sphere in the prior weeks, so it was interesting to see a summary of where things stand in the time since the Paris Agreement and what the potential outcomes of this COP may be.

The negotiations began with preliminary intra-group discussions, facilitated by a group of 12 postgraduate students. Each group defined their stance on each of the COP resolutions, ranging from option A, the most radical response, to C, the most conservative. It was evident from the off that these students were highly knowledgeable and passionate about the environmental, sociological, and economic impacts of each resolution, and as a result, each group wasted no time in prioritising the resolutions that would benefit their actor the most. Brazil factored in its current economic and development situation, as well as the Amazon’s critical role in the ecosystem balance, choosing to prioritise climate finance, natural protection and conservation and protecting climate refugees. For the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIFPCC), giving protected status to 50% of Earth’s natural areas by 2050 was defined as the most important resolution, whereas Shell chose to focus on phasing out coal, with the understanding that this would take the onus off the oil industry. Each group presented their ideal resolutions in a clear and concise manner.

The atmosphere really started to build in the hall when the first round of negotiations began. China faced Greenpeace in a heated discussion on coal usage while the IIFPCC negotiated with the USA on protecting indigenous populations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found alignment with Brazil on many of the resolutions, namely achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, natural protection and conservation to 30% of Earth’s natural areas and protecting climate refugees. In round two of negotiations, we saw Shell and the International Monetary Fund categorically disagree on the timeline for transition to Zero Emissions Vehicles, eventually compromising on a B resolution to have all new vehicle sales as zero-emission by 2040. Brazil was happy in supporting the IIPFCC in resolution 7a. (All countries must allow people fleeing from natural disasters, environmental degradation, and sea level rise to enter their countries and make their new homes there). Brazil and IIPFCC made an alliance to encourage USA toward resolution 7a, instead of their preferred 7b (Countries at risk of extinction from sea level rise should be provided with new land to settle and move their people to OR be provided with financial help to buy land in other nations). China and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) clash on coal usage, with AOSIS pushing back with a suggestion of image control, but ultimately China held strong on their decision.

Negotiation rounds 3 & 4, voting, and deputy mayor’s speech

The UK showed their tactical abilities and their knowledge in the negotiations with Greenpeace, but Greenpeace did not cede to their demands and manage to agree to a deal. The IIPFCC was determined to protect indigenous land and communities, but their quest was heavily challenged by Shell. There was no common ground in the negotiation with this petrol giant, so the IIPFCC had to ensure an allyship with Brazil if they wanted to ensure the protection of the indigenous. On round four, Shell tried to sway some votes from China and Sweden, but while agreements were found with the former, the latter country was not going to let Shell influence their values. The tête-à-tête became lively as neither Shell nor Sweden were willing to compromise, resulting in a rather unsuccessful attempt of finding complicity.

After four intense rounds of negotiating, the voting began. Were all parties going to remain faithful to the agreements established during the negotiations? Or would some throw a curve ball, changing their minds at the last minute? The pondered tactics of the IIPFCC were successful, as they managed to lock Brazil’s and the USA’s support on their most valued resolutions. All parties pondered thoroughly on how to best use their votes, and it seemed that this meant that some agreements had been silently retracted, when some astonished reactions followed the raise of hands here and there.

The conference was finally over and many parties, including Brazil and Greenpeace, could celebrate the victory of the resolutions agreed upon. Yet, it was clear that a bittersweet aftertaste was left in the mouths of some parties, who did not manage to persuade enough. The heated debate had ended, and what was done was done, but one more surprise was awaiting our participants. Deputy Mayor Asher Craig had been sitting on the sidelines for a few instances already, assisting in the final yet most heated rounds of the conference. She was there, observing our pupils in awe as they got into character and avidly fought for their beliefs. The Deputy Mayor was impressed by the passion of these young minds and how much they are invested in the cause; she was proud to see that young generations care about the environment and our planet, as they came up with ideas for change that they would like to see more in the Bristol. The innovativeness and creativity of the students was remarkable in her eyes, as she proceeded to give an inspiring and uplifting speech on the efforts currently being made by the City Council to respond to the climate emergency. The mock COP26 was a more than a successful event, and as everyone waited for the results of the conference in Glasgow, we all wished that our simulation had been real.

Watch the students in action in this short video created by Particle Productions and funded by Bristol City Council.

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This blog is written by Sonia Pighini and Jennifer Malone, who are students on the Cabot Institute for the Environment Master’s by Research.

Jennifer Malone

Currently studying for a Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges from the Cabot Institute for the Environment, Jennifer’s research is centred on food system decarbonisation within the scope of UK food policy and community practice.

Sonia Pigini

Sonia is an international student in the MscR programme Global Environmental Challenges. Their research focuses on people-centred sustainable food system transitions in Bristol. They are particularly interested in exploring the potential for a more decentralised food system in the city, which empowers local producers, engages consumers and that keeps aspects such as justice and inclusion at its heart.

Image credit (image at top of blog): Jack Pitts

India heatwave: why the region should prepare for even more extreme heat in the near future

Posted on May 13, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

An extreme heatwave in India and Pakistan has left more than a billion people in one of the most densely populated parts of the world facing temperatures well above 40℃. Although this has not broken all-time records for the regions, the hottest part of the year is yet to come.

Though the heatwave is already testing people’s ability to survive, and has led to crop failures and power blackouts, the really scary thing is that it could be worse: based on what has happened elsewhere at some point India is “due” an even more intense heatwave.

Together with a few other climate scientists, we recently looked for the most extreme heatwaves globally over the past 60 years – based on the greatest difference from expected temperature variability in that area, rather than by maximum heat alone. India and Pakistan do not feature in our results, now published in the journal Science Advances. Despite regularly having extremely high temperatures and levels of heat stress in absolute terms, when defined in terms of deviation from the local normal, heatwaves in India and Pakistan to date have not been all that extreme.

In fact, we highlighted India as a region with a particularly low greatest historical extreme. In the data we assessed, we didn’t find any heatwaves in India or Pakistan outside three standard deviations from the mean, when statistically such an event would be expected once every 30 or so years. The most severe heatwave we identified, in southeast Asia in 1998, was five standard deviations from the mean. An equivalent outlier heatwave in India today would mean temperatures of over 50℃ across large swaths of the country – such temperatures have only been seen at localised points so far.

Our work therefore suggests India may experience even more extreme heat. Assuming the statistical distribution of daily maximum temperatures is broadly the same across the world, statistically a record-breaking heatwave is likely to occur in India at some point. The region has not yet had reason to adapt to such temperatures, so may be particularly vulnerable.

Harvests and health

Although the current heatwave has not broken any all-time records, it is still exceptional. Many parts of India have experienced their hottest April on record. Such heat this early in the year will have devastating impacts on crops in a region where many rely on the wheat harvest both to eat and to earn a living. Usually, extreme heat in this area is closely followed by cooling monsoons – but these are still months away.

It is not just crop harvests that will bear the brunt, as heatwaves affect infrastructure, ecosystems and human health. The impacts on human health are complex as both meteorological factors (how hot and humid it is) and socioeconomic factors (how people live and how they are able to adapt) come into play. We do know that heat stress can lead to long-term health issues such as cardiovascular diseases, kidney failure, respiratory distress and liver failure, though we will be unable to know exactly how many people will die in this heatwave due to the lack of necessary health data from India and Pakistan.

What the future holds

To consider the impact of extreme heat over the next few decades, we have to look at both climate change and population growth, since it is a combination of the two that will amplify the human-health impacts of heat extremes in the Indian subcontinent.

world map with some countries shaded yellow — Hotspots of population increases over the next 50 years (red circles), all coincide with locations where no daily mortality data exists (yellow).
Mitchell, Nature Climate Change (2021), CC BY-SA

In our new study, we investigated how extremes are projected to increase in the future. We used a large ensemble of climate model simulations, which gave us many times more data than is available for the real world. We found that the statistical distribution of extremes, relative to a shift in the underlying climate as it generally gets warmer, does not change. In the climate models the daily temperature extremes increase at the same rate as the shift in the mean climate. The IPCC’s latest report stated that heat waves will become more intense and more frequent in south Asia this century. Our results support this.

The current heatwave is affecting over 1.5 billion people and over the next 50 years the population of the Indian subcontinent is projected to increase by a further 30%. That means hundreds of millions more people will be born into a region that is likely to experience more frequent and more severe heatwaves. With even larger numbers of people being affected by even greater heat extremes in the future, measures to adapt to climate change must be accelerated – urgently.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Vikki Thompson, Senior Research Associate in Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol and Dr Alan Thomas Kennedy-Asser, Research Associate in Climate Science, University of Bristol.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Climate change isn’t just making cyclones worse, it’s making the floods they cause worse too – new research

Posted on May 13, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

People take refuge on a sports ground following flooding caused by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique.
DFID/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Laurence Hawker, University of Bristol; Dann Mitchell, University of Bristol, and Natalie Lord, University of Bristol

Super cyclones, known as hurricanes or typhoons in different parts of the world, are among the most destructive weather events on our planet.

Although wind speeds within these storms can reach 270 km/h, the largest loss of life comes from the flooding they cause – known as a “storm surge” – when sea water is pushed onto the coast. Climate change is predicted to worsen these floods, swelling cyclone clouds with more water and driving rising sea levels that allow storm surges to be blown further inland.

In May 2020, Super Cyclone Amphan hit the India-Bangladesh border, bringing heavy rainfall and strong winds and affecting more than 13 million citizens. The cyclone also caused storm surges of 2-4 metres, flooding coastal regions in the Bay of Bengal.

While over the ocean, this category five storm – that’s a storm’s highest possible rating – became the strongest cyclone to have formed in the Bay of Bengal since 1999, reaching wind speeds of up to 260 km/h. Although it weakened to a category two storm following landfall, it remained the strongest cyclone to hit the Ganges Delta since 2007.

Amphan had severe consequences for people, agriculture, the local economy and the environment. It tragically resulted in more than 120 deaths, as well as damaging or destroying homes and power grids: leaving millions without electricity or communication in the midst of an ongoing pandemic.

Relief and aid efforts were hampered by flood damage to roads and bridges, as well as by coronavirus restrictions. Large areas of crops including rice, sesame and mangos were damaged, and fertile soils were either washed away or contaminated by saline sea water. Overall, Super Cyclone Amphan was the costliest event ever recorded in the North Indian Ocean, resulting in over $13 billion (£10 billion) of damage.

Two people assess a tree that has fallen across a road — In Kolkata, India, Super Cyclone Amphan caused widespread damage.
Indrajit Das/Wikimedia

In a recent study led by the University of Bristol and drawing on research from Bangladesh and France, we’ve investigated how the effects of storm surges like that caused by Amphan on the populations of India and Bangladesh might change under different future climate and population scenarios.

Amphan: Mark II

Rising sea levels – thanks largely to melting glaciers and ice sheets – appear to be behind the greatest uptick in future risk from cyclone flooding, since they allow storm surges to reach further inland. It’s therefore key to understand and predict how higher sea levels might exacerbate storm-driven flooding, in order to minimise loss and damage in coastal regions.

Our research used climate models from CMIP6, the latest in a series of projects aiming to improve our understanding of climate by comparing simulations produced by different modelling groups around the world. First we modelled future sea-level rise according to different future emissions scenarios, then we added that data to storm surge estimates taken from a model of Super Cyclone Amphan.

We ran three scenarios: a low emission scenario, a business-as-usual scenario and a high emission scenario. And in addition to modelling sea-level rise, we also estimated future populations across India and Bangladesh to assess how many more people storm surges could affect. In most cases, we found that populations are likely to rise: especially in urban areas.

Our findings were clear: exposure to flooding from cyclone storm surges is extremely likely to increase. In India, exposure increase ranged from 50-90% for the lowest emission scenario, to a 250% increase for the highest emission scenario. In Bangladesh, we found a 0-20% exposure increase for the lowest emission scenario and a 60-70% increase for the highest emission scenario. The difference in exposure between the two countries is mostly due to declining coastal populations as a result of urban migration inland.

Imagine we’re now in 2100. Even in a scenario where we’ve managed to keep global emissions relatively low, the local population exposed to storm surge flooding from an event like Amphan will have jumped by ~350,000. Compare this to a high emission scenario, where an extra 1.35 million people will now be exposed to flooding. And for flood depths of over one metre – a depth that poses immediate danger to life – almost half a million more people will be exposed to storm surge flooding in a high emission scenario, compared to a low emission scenario.

A composite satellite image of a large white cyclone — A satellite image shows Amphan approaching the coasts of India and Bangladesh.
Pierre Markuse/Wikimedia

This research provides yet more support for rapidly and permanently reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to keep global warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Although we’ve focused on storm surge flooding, other cyclone-related hazards are also projected to worsen, including deadly heatwaves following cyclones hitting land. And in the case of Amphan, interplay between climate change and coronavirus likely made the situation for people on the ground far worse. As the world warms, we mustn’t avoid the reality that pandemics and other climate-related crises are only forecast to increase.

Urgent action on emissions is vital to protect highly climate-vulnerable countries from the fatal effects of extreme weather. Amphan Mark II need not be as destructive as we’ve projected if the world’s governments act now to meet Paris agreement climate goals.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Laurence Hawker, Senior Research Associate in Geography, University of Bristol; Professor Dann Mitchell, Professor of Climate Science, University of Bristol, and Dr Natalie Lord, Honorary Research Associate in Climate Science, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.