News 2019

Most recreational fishermen do not take notice of the little threespine stickleback fish - it is too small and spiny to make a good meal. In Lake Constance however, the professional fishermen involuntarily became acquainted with it a few years ago. That's because the stickleback population has exploded in the lake, resulting in half of the fish biomass belonging to this species and them often clogging the fishermen's gill nets.

A memorandum of collaboration to be agreed by UCL and the European Space Agency (ESA) is one of the most comprehensive to date between ESA and a university and builds on existing close co-operation on missions to study space weather and other phenomena in space. The memorandum, due to be signed by Jan Woerner, Director General of ESA, and David Price, UCL Vice-Provost (Research), will cover a swathe of topics ranging from planetary science to space policy, governance and security.

As part of MOSAiC field campaign, environmental researchers will operate a suite of instruments 24/7 as ship drifts in ice for the winter The data collected has the potential to transform our understanding of the way the Arctic is responding to climate change-so important to improving our ability to predict global climate impacts of a rapidly changing Arctic environment.

A pioneering study carried out at EPFL shows that the amount of daylight in a room can influence our thermal comfort and how well we tolerate heat or cold. The findings could be used to improve existing building standards and decrease energy consumption. The difference between reality and our perception of reality has long intrigued Western philosophers.

Most recreational fishermen do not take notice of the little threespine stickleback fish - it is too small and spiny to make a good meal. In Lake Constance however, the professional fishermen involuntarily became acquainted with it a few years ago. That's because the stickleback population has exploded in the lake, resulting in half of the fish biomass belonging to this species and them often clogging the fishermen's gill nets.

Professor Mark Maslin (UCL Geography) writes about common climate change myths and explains how each can be disproven. The science of climate change is more than 150 years old and it is probably the most tested area of modern science. However the energy industry, political lobbyists and others have spent the last 30 years sowing doubt about the science where none really exists.

Here's a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial. From new models of Brazilian investment without ecological destruction, to fresh insights into photosynthesis, here is some quick-read news from across the College. Brazil's (and the world's) climate conundrum As one of the world's ten largest economies, Brazil has the potential for a unique model of economic progress.

World leaders need to urgently accelerate efforts to prevent "profound, if not catastrophic" climate change in future, a distinguished group of scientists has warned. According to their new study published in Science today, acting to reduce climate change would cost much less than repairing the damage it would inflict in coming decades on people, infrastructure and ecosystems.

A report investigating travel habits in seven European cities reveals environmental and social drivers that make people choose to walk. The new research reveals these include social factors such as how safe people feel and how concerned they are about air pollution, and urban design, such as how connected streets are and how close people are to public transport links.

Angelos Tsiaras (UCL Physics & Astronomy) writes about the methods used to discover water vapour in the atmosphere of K2-18 b, the first potentially habitable planet outside of our solar system. With more than 4,000 exoplanets - planets orbiting stars other than our sun - discovered so far, it may seem like we are on the cusp of finding out whether we are alone in the universe.

An international group of scientists have urgently called on world leaders to accelerate efforts to tackle climate change. Almost every aspect of the planet's environment and ecology is undergoing changes as a result of climate change, some of which are profound if not catastrophic for the future. Rising sea-levels is one of the biggest threats.

Globe magazine , News By: Michael Keller To safeguard the long-term future of agricultural production in Switzerland, ETH and Agroscope are investigating how resistant the country's crop­ping systems are to drought. The heatwave of 2018 was yet another warning to both farmers and the public on the effects of climate change: in the future, Switzerland will see less and less rain during the summer months.

The global conservation community has been urged to adopt a specific target to protect the world's remaining wilderness areas to prevent large scale loss of at-risk species. A University of Queensland and CSIRO study has found that wilderness areas - where human impact is minimal or absent - halves the global risk of species extinction.

Strategies to limit climate change that focus on warming in the next couple of decades would leave less of a burden for future generations. Research led by Imperial College London and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria, suggests a new underpinning logic for strategies that seek to limit climate change.

About 466 million years ago, long before the age of the dinosaurs, the Earth froze. The seas began to ice over at the Earth's poles, and the new range of temperatures around the planet set the stage for a boom of new species. The cause of this ice age was a mystery, until now: a new study by a group of scientists including a University of Chicago professor argues that the ice age was caused by global cooling, triggered by extra dust in the atmosphere from a giant asteroid collision in outer space.

A new study, including scientists from Cardiff University and published today , discovers a clear climatic signature on rivers globally that challenges existing theories. If you walk from a river's source to its mouth, you walk a path that descends in elevation. In some rivers, this path will descend steeply out of the uplands, and then flatten out in the lowlands.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2017, was the first UN multilateral environmental agreement to be universally ratified (197 Parties by 2008). The aim of this treaty is to protect the stratospheric ozone layer - essential for life on Earth - by phasing out the production and controlling emissions of ozone-depleting substances (chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs).

A new study, led by scientists from the University of Bristol and published , discovers a clear climatic signature on rivers globally that challenges existing theories. For decades geoscientists have been trying to detect the influence of climate on the formation of rivers, but up to now there has been no systematic evidence.

A key question for climate scientists in recent years has been whether the Atlantic Ocean's main circulation system is slowing down, a development that could have dramatic consequences for Europe and other parts of the Atlantic rim. But a new study suggests help may be on the way from an unexpected source - the Indian Ocean.

A new way to convert carbon dioxide into the building block for sustainable liquid fuels was very efficient in tests and did not have the reaction that destroys the conventional device. If the idea of flying on battery-powered commercial jets makes you nervous, you can relax a little. Researchers have discovered a practical starting point for converting carbon dioxide into sustainable liquid fuels, including fuels for heavier modes of transportation that may prove very difficult to electrify, like airplanes, ships and freight trains.