Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Apple TV+ , CC BY-NC-SA 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 mo...

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 p...

Despite the huge human and economic costs of the COVID pandemic, many commentators have observed that this disruption – or shock – to our resource-intensive daily lives could offer a catalyst for the great societal transformations necessary to meet the climate emergency.   Radical growth of home working is an oft-cited example. According to Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures 50% of those in employment did some work from home in April 2020. This mainstreaming of home working has been facilitated by the rapid appropriation of digital devices and services into our everyday lives. It has been accompanied by equally rapid development of cultural skills and competencies required to (collectively) use those devices and services in a satisfactory way. And has led to major adjustments in how we work but also how we shop, interact, use our homes, engage with our local communities, learn, care for others and so on.   Home working during the pandemic, March 2020 (imag...

The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol ran a discussion panel on if and how should (environmental) sustainability be taught to the Engineering students. Here are my 2 pence on teaching sustainability to Computer Science students. Why should our students engage with Environmental Sustainability in their formal education? Well because the ICT/Software impacts and drives every activity in the present society – from the day to day business to entertainment, education, and policy. This impact is felt in two ways: through production and use of ICT equipment and software, and through changing the way that the society itself operates. I will only mention some brief points about the impact of production and use of ICT : Energy Consumption of the ICT systems seems to be growing unstoppably, e.g., In 2018 the data centres were accountable for  about 1 % of the global electricity use The energy consumption of the ICT is projected (in worst case) to account for 20% of the world...

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, w...

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 metre...

In this special blog series,  Migration Mobilities Bristol  (MMB) and the  Cabot Institute for the Environment  bring together researchers from across the University of Bristol to explore connections between movement and the environment from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Their diverse approaches highlight the importance of developing frames that incorporate both migration and environment, and in so doing benefit our understandings of both.  ------------------------------------- Migration can make you happy. When I see the first swifts arrive in the spring, I stop in my tracks and smile broadly at all and everyone. I have to restrain myself from telling people walking down the street that ‘they’ are back. Swifts are one of the wonders of the world – they make Concorde look clunky, they hurtle down streets in towns screaming wildly at dusk seemingly just for the fun of it, and scientists have calculated that the distance they fly over their lifetime is equival...

In this special blog series,  Migration Mobilities Bristol  (MMB) and the  Cabot Institute for the Environment  bring together researchers from across the University of Bristol to explore connections between movement and the environment from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Their diverse approaches highlight the importance of developing frames that incorporate both migration and environment, and in so doing benefit our understandings of both.  ------------------------------------- In 2015, Ioane Teitiota and his family were deported from New Zealand to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. His asylum application had been based on the grounds that water, due to sea level rise, had made the island uninhabitable in various ways: there was a shortage of clean drinking water; the available habitable land had decreased, which had led to increased insecurity because of violent land disputes; and the main activity, subsistence farming, was impeded. Water has always ha...