Date: Tuesday 26 November 2013
Time: 18:00 (17.40 for refreshments)
Location: Manchester Metropolitan University, C0.14, John Dalton Building, Chester Street, Manchester, M1 5GD
Professor Piers Forster, Professor of Physical Climate Change, Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science,
University of Leeds.
Title: Hot off the Press: What’s new in Climate Science?
Abstract:
For over 20 years, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has provided assessments of climate change research. The IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990 played a decisive role in leading to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the second assessment report led to the Kyoto Protocol signing in 1997. After the publication of the forth assessment report in 2007, the IPCC was joint recipient of the Nobel Peace prize. The physical science part of the Fifth Assessment Report, will be released at the end of September 2013. This will provide an update of knowledge related to climate change including information on: recent climate change, the carbon cycle and sea-level rise. It will also produce a set of updated climate projections out until 2100. Piers Forster was one of the lead authors of this report and of past reports. He also helped write the summary for policy makers that will be signed off at a 10 day meeting in Stockholm in September by the World’s governments. He will present his own take on the report, answering questions on the state of climate science and its policy implications.
Friday, 22 November 2013
Monday, 18 November 2013
Have some nice cakes for charity !!
Hello everyone,
I would like to invite you all to a bake-off in aid of the Disasters Emergency Committee's Philippine Typhoon Appeal. Lesley and Martin have kindly offered to fill Mary Berry and Phil Hollywood's shoes for the day and vote on the best cake! The bake-off will take place from 1-2 pm in the common room on the 4th floor, Wednesday the 27th November - Extended to 3pm for MSc Students to buy leftover cakes during their coffee hour. We will provide tea and coffee (although please bring your mug!) and all donations will be gratefully received! If you cannot bake, then please come along to taste all the wonderful cakes!
Let the baking commence!
Cheers,
Beth Roberts
PhD Student
I would like to invite you all to a bake-off in aid of the Disasters Emergency Committee's Philippine Typhoon Appeal. Lesley and Martin have kindly offered to fill Mary Berry and Phil Hollywood's shoes for the day and vote on the best cake! The bake-off will take place from 1-2 pm in the common room on the 4th floor, Wednesday the 27th November - Extended to 3pm for MSc Students to buy leftover cakes during their coffee hour. We will provide tea and coffee (although please bring your mug!) and all donations will be gratefully received! If you cannot bake, then please come along to taste all the wonderful cakes!
Let the baking commence!
Cheers,
Beth Roberts
PhD Student
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
EMSD Praised in The Guardian by Alumni
Hi all,
There was a nice article in the Guardian a few days ago, by Lucy Barrett (a recent EMSD MSc graduate) praising the MSc course and revealing how useful it has been to get her ideal job:
Click HERE to view the article.
In particular, the article said:
"Lucy, now 23, chose the MSc in environmental management and sustainable development at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). She also did her first degree at MMU, but says she would have chosen it anyway because of the university's good reputation in the field and the fact the course included a work-based placement and project.
While on her placement with the Stockport Homes housing association, Lucy won an award in a national competition for her work to persuade local residents and companies to recycle waste."
Not only did she receive several job offers, she also landed a post with the Environment Agency (EA), the public body that turned her down when she first applied because she had no work experience. "When I graduated with a geography degree, I applied for several jobs, but no one was interested," she says. "I began to realise that having a postgraduate degree is more of a requirement than something extra on the CV."
There was a nice article in the Guardian a few days ago, by Lucy Barrett (a recent EMSD MSc graduate) praising the MSc course and revealing how useful it has been to get her ideal job:
Click HERE to view the article.
In particular, the article said:
"Lucy, now 23, chose the MSc in environmental management and sustainable development at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). She also did her first degree at MMU, but says she would have chosen it anyway because of the university's good reputation in the field and the fact the course included a work-based placement and project.
While on her placement with the Stockport Homes housing association, Lucy won an award in a national competition for her work to persuade local residents and companies to recycle waste."
Not only did she receive several job offers, she also landed a post with the Environment Agency (EA), the public body that turned her down when she first applied because she had no work experience. "When I graduated with a geography degree, I applied for several jobs, but no one was interested," she says. "I began to realise that having a postgraduate degree is more of a requirement than something extra on the CV."
Thursday, 17 October 2013
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
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
Monday, 14 October 2013
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.
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.
Monday, 7 October 2013
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
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
Friday, 4 October 2013
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
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
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