Learning from the Great Tide

31st January, 2023

 

On the exact 70^th anniversary of the catastrophic 1953 storm surge along the east coast of England, listen to Tom Spencer, Emeritus Professor of Coastal Dynamics, Department of Geography talk about the governmental response at the time, the challenges for the management of low-lying coasts now, and the work of the Cambridge Coastal Research Unit in a BBC Radio 4 programme, Seriously... Learning from the Great Tide.

COP27 and the era of loss and damage: from periphery to core

18th January, 2023

 

Final year PhD student Friederike Hartz attended the COP27 negotiations in Sharm el Sheikh in November. Here in this post for the Oxford University Politics Blog, Freddie provides a historical perspetive on the rise of the 'loss and damage' agenda, explaining how what was once regarded as a problem of the periphery, loss and damage has now become a core concern in international climate negotiations.

Runaway West Antarctic ice retreat can be slowed by climate-driven changes in ocean temperature

17th January, 2023

 

An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Frazer Christie, has combined satellite imagery and climate and ocean records to obtain the most detailed understanding yet of how West Antarctica is responding to climate change.

Their results, published in the journal Nature Communications, show that while West Antarctica continues to retreat, the pace of ice melting has recently slowed across its most vulnerable sector in-sync with changes in atmosphere and ocean conditions offshore. Ultimately, the research implies that runaway, ice-sheet-wide collapse isn't inevitable, depending on how the climate changes over the next few decades.

The study was supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Natural Environment Research Council, the US National Science Foundation, the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration project and the European Space Agency.

Launch of RGS Report on Law and Geography

16th January, 2023

 

An Royal Geographical Society Report was launched today examining how geographical ideas impact legal processes. Co-authored by Prof. Alex Jeffrey, the report draws on surveys and interviews with geographers across the UK to explore the often-hidden role of geographical knowledge in impacting legal processes. A key goal of the report is to make visible these endeavours, promote the importance of geography to public audiences, and to learn from geographers' experiences to provide better support and training for geographers in the future.