Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Bristol during the pleiocene as envisaged by Lucas Antics. The oceans are experiencing a devastating combination of stresses. Rising CO2 levels are raising temperatures while acidifying surface waters.  More intense rainfall events, deforestation and intensive farming are causing soils and nutrients to be flushed to coastal seas. And increasingly, the oceans are being stripped of oxygen , with larger than expected dead zones being identified in an ever broadening range of settings . These dead zones appear to be primarily caused by the runoff of nutrients from our farmlands to the sea, but it is a process that could be exacerbated by climate change – as has happened in the past. Recently, our group published a paper about the environmental conditions of the Zechstein Sea , which reached from Britain to Poland 270 million years ago. Our paper revealed that for tens of thousands of years, some parts – but only parts – of the Zechstein Sea were anoxic (devoid of oxygen). As su...

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons At a news conference announcing that 2015 broke all previous heat records by a wide margin, one journalist started a question with “If this trend continues…” The response by the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Gavin Schmidt, summed up the physics of climate change succinctly: “It’s not a question of if…” Even if global emissions begin to decline, as now appears possible after the agreement signed in Paris last December, there is no reasonable scientific doubt that the upward trends in global temperature, sea levels, and extreme weather events will continue for quite some time . Politically and ideologically motivated denial will nonetheless continue for a little while longer, until it ceases to be politically opportune. So how does one deny that climate change is upon us and that 2015 was by far the hottest year on record? What misinformation will be disseminated to confuse the public? ...

Image taken from Wikimedia Commons . Credit Paul Maritz. It’s official: 2015 was the warmest year on record . But those global temperature records only date back to 1850 and become increasingly uncertain the further back you go. Beyond then, we’re reliant on signs left behind in tree rings, ice cores or rocks. So when was the Earth last warmer than the present? The Medieval Warm Period is often cited as the answer. This spell, beginning in roughly 950AD and lasting for three centuries, saw major changes to population centres across the globe. This included the collapse of the Tiwanaku civilisation in South America due to increased aridity, and the colonisation of Greenland by the Vikings. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, some regions were warmer than in recent years, but others were substantially colder. Across the globe, averaged temperatures then were in fact cooler than today . To reach a point when the Earth was significantly warmer than today we’d need to g...

At the start of a new year, I wanted to acknowledge the achievements of our colleagues at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute over the past year and to summarise our priorities for 2016. Cabot Institute members celebrating Cabot's 5th birthday at the University of Bristol. 2015 was a genuinely historical year for the Cabot Institute and for Bristol. I do not use that term lightly.  During the year in which the Institute celebrated its 5th anniversary, many of us worked extensively with the City to host the European Green Capital  and contribute substantively to the Paris Climate summit . We raised our profile both in the city and internationally, directly showcasing Cabot Institute research to over 100,000 people – and far more if we include coverage in the national and international press. This was happening against a background of collaborative activity that included the f unding of UKCRIC (UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure & Cities) and...

There has been a substantial amount of press coverage recently on the plight of our pollinators. They are now less abundant and widespread than they were in the 1950s. A number of threats are responsible, including habitat loss, disease, extreme weather, climate change and pesticide use. There is not one smoking gun among these threats, but rather the combination that has endangered some species in the UK. Loss of wild flower rich habitat (due to intensive agriculture, industrialisation and urbanisation) escalates the effect of disease, extreme weather, climate change and pesticide use. Without food or shelter, pollinators are more vulnerable. Whilst visiting the University of Bristol Botanic Garden a few weeks ago, I noticed the abundance of pollinators busily visiting many different flowers from the orchid look-a-like flower of Impatiens tinctoria to the swathes of Rudbeckia sp. and Verbena bonariensis. This year saw the 6th year of the University of Bristol Botanic Gardens h...