Research Seminar (VERY suitable for EMSD)

Please note below details of a timely seminar, following recent publication of the IPCC 5th assessment WG1 report, that will be given by Professor Richard Bardgett (University of Manchester) next Tuesday (22/10) between 1-2 pm in SB2.10, Sandra Burslem Building.

Going underground: plant functional traits, soil microbial feedbacks and climate change

Professor Richard D Bardgett

Faculty of Life Sciences, Michael Smith Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT.

Human activities are rapidly changing the world’s ecosystems. The most obvious human impact is through the conversion of land for agriculture, but terrestrial ecosystems are also affected by other global change phenomena, including climate change. This has led to a groundswell of research aimed at improving understanding of the impact of global changes on biodiversity and ecosystem function, and on management strategies to mitigate them. Whilst this topic has received much attention, scientists have only recently become aware that understanding the consequences of global change for ecosystem functioning requires consideration of interactions between plant and soil communities. This is because the impact of global changes on the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems is often indirect: they operate via changes aboveground that cascade belowground to the soil biological community, which drives biogeochemical processes and feedbacks to the Earth’s climate system. In this talk, I will discuss recent research that shows how a plant trait-based approach can be used to improve understanding of the way that changes in plant community structure impact on soil microbial communities and the processes that they drive, and to better understand the consequences of global change for ecosystem functioning.

(Host: Dr. Robin Sen)

Please note that a campus map is available HERE

Research Seminar

Tomorrow's (15/10/13) speaker is Phil Hughes His talk is entitled:
Timing of glaciation during the last glacial cycle: evaluating the concept of a global 'Last Glacial Maximum' and the abstract is below.

Seminars are in room 2.10, Sandra Burslem Building, Tuesdays at 1.00 pm

ABSTRACT
It has long been known that mountain glaciers and continental ice sheets around the globe reached their respective maximum extent at different times during the last glacial cycle, often well before the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; c. 23–19 ka), which is formally defined by peaks in global sea-level and marine oxygen isotope records. However, there is increasing evidence from around the world that it was not only mountain glaciers which were asynchronous with the global LGM but also some regions of the large continental glaciers. The Barents–Kara Ice Sheet in northern Eurasia together with a majority of ice masses throughout Asia and Australasia reached their maximum early in the last glacial cycle, a few thousand years before the global LGM period. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet also reached its maximum extent several millennia before the global LGM. In numerous mountainous regions at high-, mid- and low-latitudes across the world, glaciers reached their maximum extent before Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2, in MIS 5, 4 and 3. This is in contrast to most sectors of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, the SE sector of the Fennoscandinavian Ice Sheet and the Alpine Ice Sheet in central Europe, which appear to have reached their maximum close to the global LGM in MIS 2. The diachronous maximum extents of both mountain glaciers and continental ice sheets during the last glacial cycle, means that the term and acronym Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has limited chronostratigraphical meaning when correlating glacial deposits and landforms.

Student Reps: Please communicate with them

Hi all,

Your student Reps this year are:

Peter Lawrence (EMSD)
PETER.LAWRENCE@stu.mmu.ac.uk and


Catherine Van Russelt (EMSD)
CATHERINE.E.VAN-RUSSELT@stu.mmu.ac.uk


They cover all the courses currently running (EMSD/EMB/SA)
Please communicate any issues you may have for raising at the next Staff-Student Liaison meeting. These can be problems or sources of annoyance...as well as things you have liked or would want more of.


Thanks
Mark

Royal Meteorological Society talk

Date: Tuesday 8 October 2013
Time: 18:00 (17.40 for refreshments)

Location: Manchester Metropolitan University, C0.14, John Dalton Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6BH
signs will be up inside the building on the day to direct you to room T0.03

SPEAKER: Dr James Allan, University of Manchester and National Centre for Atmospheric Science
Title: Atmospheric particulates and climate: Big effects, big uncertainties

Abstract:
Aerosols, or particulates, in the atmosphere are known to have a major effect on climate, but they are also very poorly understood. They are both naturally occurring and caused by human activities and their effects depend on many properties such as what they are made of, how big they are, how many there are and where in the atmosphere they are. This talk will focus on efforts to measure these aerosols and their effects such that we can understand them better and make more accurate predictions of climate change. Proposed methods of utilising aerosols to offset global warming will also be discussed.

As always, the meeting is free and open to all without registration.
We look forward to seeing you there.

Regards,
Mike Bennett