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A window blind came crashing down and as her partner tried to reattach the fitting, he saw a row of trees slowly sliding over the nearby cliff edge.

"He said 'you need to get out' and I think that's when I just lost it a little bit," the 42-year-old said.

She gathered up her four children, throwing coats over the youngest, aged six and eight. In the dash for safety, she didn't even have time to put on their shoes.

Over the next four days, she watched from a distance as her home on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, went over the cliff in stages. The slow process was "like torture", she said, and left a strange sense of "relief" when the whole thing finally fell on 2 June.

"I've got nothing," she said. "All we got out with was the pyjamas we were wearing."

Thousands more properties have been protected by costly coastal defences.

So, why are some areas saved and others left to fall into the sea?

With this in mind, the council and the Environment Agency - which are jointly responsible for managing coastal defences in the area - agreed on a policy of "no active intervention". Nature would be left to run its course.

Coastal defences, such as building a wall of rock to stop waves lapping at a cliff's base, are expensive and can have unintended consequences, like hastening erosion elsewhere, said landslide expert Dave Petley, a professor at the University of Sheffield.

"For smaller communities in general, it's not considered to be worth the damage to the adjacent sections of the cliff or the damage to the environment," he added.

Ms Tullett made an offer less than an hour after viewing her dream home. The property, called Cliff Hanger, had stunning views and ample space for her children.

She paid in cash in August 2018, believing the family would have decades before they need worry about the encroaching cliffs.

Erosion is a gradual process, she thought, and by the time her home was at risk "they'd probably have dumped me in a nursing home".

Her neighbour Malcolm Newell moved to Surf Crescent with his wife in 2001, hoping to escape the "hustle and bustle" of the mainland.

The retired wood-turner, 71, said they had enjoyed "16 good years" before his wife died. "The memories that are here can't be replaced," he said.

But, by 2015 he had become increasingly concerned about his future and began campaigning for action to halt erosion.

The battle has seen him elected to Eastchurch Parish Council and come up against an array of public bodies, including the Environment Agency, Natural England and Swale Borough Council.

He is left feeling that he and his neighbours are the "outcasts of the island", and says: "We are the forgotten few."

The 30 or so homes, nestled between two caravan parks, are connected by several unsurfaced, rutted roads.

Mr Newell believes the rugged appearance means they are written off by the authorities. "We get looked on as if we are hillbillies," he said.

Mr Henderson admitted that there was a "Wild West-type environment" among some on the island, who preferred to be free from outside intervention.

"That doesn't detract from the services we should be providing those people and the protection that they deserve and they should be getting," he told the BBC.

Less than 40 miles away, the East Sussex village of Fairlight provides a very different story.

By the late 1980s, several homes in Fairlight Cove had already been lost to the sea and up to 200 more were at risk.

Like residents of Surf Crescent, villagers had been told coastal defences would be too expensive, after research for Rother District Council concluded the costs of the works would exceed any benefits.

However, local resident Dr Ruth Kosmin, a government economist who was "familiar with how to do a cost-benefit analysis", took a second look at the numbers and found they were "completely out and that actually the benefits outweighed costs".

Armed with this information, the residents' group - now a registered charity called the Fairlight Preservation Trust - persuaded the district council to submit an application for government funding, and a rock berm costing £2.7m was installed in 1990.

In the following 25 years, the community twice bid successfully for additional defences, with a second berm installed at a cost of £2.7m in 2007. By the time a third application was made in 2015, the government required "partnership funding" and residents contributed £150,000 towards the £1.7m costs - of which £75,000 was paid by the Fairlight Parish Council.

Alongside personal donations, residents "did everything from cream teas, to cycle events" to raise the money, Dr Kosmin said.

Looking back on the decades-long fight to protect their homes, Dr Kosmin said the professional expertise of local residents was "absolutely crucial" to their success.

"We had local lawyers, we had people who were company secretaries, we had people in business, we knew how to deal with government," she said.

But, Dr Kosmin believes other communities who lack the same expertise would not be at a disadvantage, because in most cases the local authority would champion their cause and hire expert consultants.

Any intervention now would be too late for Ms Tullett and her family, whose future remains uncertain.

Decades spent climbing the property ladder have been for nothing. "We're back to square one," she said.

Ms Tullett, who manages a grocery store in Minster, Kent, had owned her home outright, but with no prospect of an insurance payout, she now faces monthly rent bills.

She wonders why homes can still be bought and sold in the area if the authorities know it "could go at any minute".

"Why not compulsory-purchase all the property? Just say... you're not living here any more."

Prof Petley believes many homeowners "genuinely haven't understood the risk that they're taking" buying a cliff-top property.

A "high burden" is placed on householders' ability to understand "whether that house is at risk or not", he said.

The government has pledged to spend £5.2bn over the next six years to protect households at risk of coastal erosion and flooding.

But, in areas that don't qualify for publicly funded coastal defences, local councils are responsible for helping people to adapt to the growing threat.

While government grants of £6,000 are available to demolish at-risk homes, any other financial support is limited and varies from area to area.

"The prevailing view, and I do think this is harsh, is you need to recognise that the cliff will retreat towards your house and eventually it will imperil it," Prof Petley said.

Asked what had been done to inform residents of the risk and help them adapt, Swale Borough Council said erosion had been a "well-known issue along this stretch of coast for decades", adding that it would be "highlighted in surveys when someone buys a property or takes out home insurance".

Prof Petley believes a national fund - similar to New Zealand's earthquake commission - is needed to compensate homeowners like Ms Tullett and help others move out of harm's way.

"As a country, we've made a decision that we don't support people in that position," he said. "If your house is destroyed by coastal erosion or by landsliding, essentially you're on your own."

More on this story

Related Internet Links

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Coastal erosion: The 'forgotten' community left to fall off a cliff

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A window blind came crashing down and as her partner tried to reattach the fitting, he saw a row of trees slowly sliding over the nearby cliff edge. "He said 'you need to get out' and I think that's when I just lost it a little bit," the 42-year-old said.

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International lawyers working to protect ecosystems / biomes

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International lawyers are drafting plans for a legally enforceable crime of ecocide - criminalising destruction of the world's ecosystems - that is already attracting support from European countries and island nations at risk from rising sea levels.

The panel coordinating the initiative is chaired by Prof Philippe Sands QC, of University College London, and Florence Mumba, a former judge at the international criminal court (ICC).

The aim is to draw up a legal definition of "ecocide" that would complement other existing international offences such as crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

The project, convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation at the request of Swedish parliamentarians, has been launched this month to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders in 1945.

Several small island nations, including Vanuatu, in the Pacific and the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean, called for "serious consideration" of a crime of ecocide at the ICC's annual assembly of states parties in December last year.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has also championed the idea and the Belgian government has pledged support. The shadow justice secretary, David Lammy, has also called for ecocide to be incorporated into law.

The international criminal court, which is based in The Hague, has previously promised to prioritise crimes that result in the "destruction of the environment", "exploitation of natural resources" and the "illegal dispossession" of land.

An ICC policy paper in 2016 said it was not formally extending its jurisdiction but would assess existing offences, such as crimes against humanity, in a broader context. There have been no formal investigations or charges of this type so far.

Sands said: "The time is right to harness the power of international criminal law to protect our global environment ... My hope is that this group will be able to ... forge a definition that is practical, effective and sustainable, and that might attract support to allow an amendment to the ICC statute to be made."

Mumba, a judge at the Khmer Rouge tribunal and former supreme court judge in Zambia, said: "An international crime of ecocide may be important in that individual/state responsibility may be regulated to achieve balance for the survival of both humanity and nature."

Jojo Mehta, the chair of the Stop Ecocide Foundation, told the Guardian: "In most cases ecocide is likely to be a corporate crime. Criminalising something at the ICC means that nations that have ratified it have to incorporate it into their own national legislation.

"That means there would be lots of options for prosecuting [offending corporations] around the world."

Mehta said one challenge for the drafting panel would be to define at what point an ecocide offence would come into force. Chopping down a single tree on a village green would not be sufficient, she explained.

"It would have to involve mass, systematic or widespread destruction," she added. "We are probably talking about Amazon deforestation on a huge scale, deep sea bottom trawling or oil spills. We want to place it at the same level as atrocities investigated by the ICC."

The 13-strong legal panel of experts from around the world include Tuiloma Neroni Slade of Samoa, who is also a former ICC judge. They are planning to complete their work early next year.

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International lawyers draft plan to criminalise ecosystem destruction

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International lawyers are drafting plans for a legally enforceable crime of ecocide - criminalising destruction of the world's ecosystems - that is already attracting support from European countries and island nations at risk from rising sea levels.

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Orange County wildfires 'may have been started by electrical equipment'

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Orange County wildfires ‘may have been started by electrical equipment’

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Local utility company Southern California Edison says its equipment might have sparked the blaze.

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Amazon forest: Satellite view of deforestation

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Amazon forest: Satellite view of deforestation

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Orbiting spacecraft now routinely observe the Amazon rainforest and its health.

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'Cooling paint' could cut emissions from buildings

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'Cooling paint' could cut emissions from buildings

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"In one experiment where we put a painted surface outside under direct sunlight, the surface cooled 1.7C below the ambient temperature and during night time it even cooled up to 10C below the ambient temperature," said Prof Xiulin Ruan, from Purdue University in Indiana, who's an author on the study.

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Climate change: 'Cooling paint' could cut emissions from buildings

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"In one experiment where we put a painted surface outside under direct sunlight, the surface cooled 1.7C below the ambient temperature and during night time it even cooled up to 10C below the ambient temperature," said Prof Xiulin Ruan, from Purdue University in Indiana, who's an author on the study.

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Satellites picture methane across the globe

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Satellites picture methane across the globe

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Satellites picture methane across the globe

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The GHGSat company releases a tool to show how methane varies in the atmosphere across the world.

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About the inter-relationship between the water and carbon cycle —> also cross-over with Global Governance (Antarctica)

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The first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists.

The researchers also found microbes that normally consume the potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere had only arrived in small numbers after five years, allowing the gas to escape.

Vast quantities of methane are thought to be stored under the sea floor around Antarctica. The gas could start to leak as the climate crisis warms the oceans, a prospect the researchers said was "incredibly concerning".

The reason for the emergence of the new seep remains a mystery, but it is probably not global heating, as the Ross Sea where it was found has yet to warm significantly. The research also has significance for climate models, which currently do not account for a delay in the microbial consumption of escaping methane.

The active seep was first spotted by chance by divers in 2011, but it took scientists until 2016 to return to the site and study it in detail, before beginning laboratory work.

"The delay [in methane consumption] is the most important finding," said Andrew Thurber, from Oregon State University in the US, who led the research. "It is not good news. It took more than five years for the microbes to begin to show up and even then there was still methane rapidly escaping from the sea floor."

The release of methane from frozen underwater stores or permafrost regions is one of the key tipping points that scientists are concerned about, which occur when a particular impact of global heating becomes unstoppable.

"The methane cycle is absolutely something that we as a society need to be concerned about," said Thurber. "I find it incredibly concerning."

Very little was known about the Antarctic methane cycle but the good news, he said, was that the new seep provided a natural laboratory for further research.

Why the new seep formed is unknown. "That is a mystery that we still do not have an answer to," Thurber said. "It is on the side of an active volcano but it doesn't seem like it came from that."

Prof Jemma Wadham, at the University of Bristol, UK, who was not involved in the study, said: "Antarctica and its ice sheet are huge black holes in our understanding of Earth's methane cycle - they are difficult places to work.

"We think that there is likely [to be] significant methane beneath the ice sheet," she said. "The big question is: how large is the lag [in methane-consuming microbes] compared with the speed at which new leaks of methane might potentially form in the wake of retreating ice?"

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, reports the discovery of the methane seep at a 10-metre (30ft) deep site known as Cinder Cones in McMurdo Sound. It is a 70-metre long patch of white microbial mats, and a second seep was found during the 2016 expedition.

"We stumbled upon the methane seep at a site that has been dived at since the 1960s and it had just turned on," said Thurber. There were no bubbles of methane, he said. "Most of the methane in many seeps actually comes out in what we call diffuse flows. So it's just dissolved in the water."

The source of the methane is probably decaying algae deposits buried under sediments and is likely to be thousands of years old. In most parts of the oceans, methane leaking from the sea bed is consumed by microbes in the sediment or the water column above. But the slow growth of microbes at the Cinder Cones site, and its shallow depth, means methane is almost certain to be leaking into the atmosphere.

Thurber said the first microbes to grow at the site were of an unexpected strain. "We're probably in a successional stage, where it may be five to 10 years before a community becomes fully adapted and starts consuming methane."

Widespread active methane seepage was reported off the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia in 2014, a first for the Southern Ocean. "But that's really a different oceanographic area than the Antarctic continent," Thurber said.

Wadham said the five years for which the Cinder Cones seep has been studied is a short amount of time. "So it would be good to see what happens to this seep into the future. The discovery also makes you wonder if these features are more common than we might think around Antarctica, but are rarely stumbled upon."

However, the researchers are unlikely to be able to return to Antarctica soon. The continent is currently free of coronavirus but the risk of infection has disrupted expedition plans.

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First active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica

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The first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists. The researchers also found microbes that normally consume the potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere had only arrived in small numbers after five years, allowing the gas to escape.

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River Thames 'severely polluted with plastic'

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The River Thames has some of the highest recorded levels of microplastics for any river in the world.

Scientists have estimated that 94,000 microplastics per second flow down the river in places.

The quantity exceeds that measured in other European rivers, such as the Danube and Rhine.

Tiny bits of plastic have been found inside the bodies of crabs living in the Thames.

And wet wipes flushed down the toilet are accumulating in large numbers on the shoreline.

Researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London, are calling for stricter regulations on the labelling and disposal of plastic products.

They warn that careless disposal of plastic gloves and masks during the coronavirus pandemic might make the problem of plastic pollution worse.

"Taken together these studies show how many different types of plastic, from microplastics in the water through to larger items of debris physically altering the foreshore, can potentially affect a wide range of organisms in the River Thames," said Prof Dave Morritt from Royal Holloway.

"The increased use of single-use plastic items, and the inappropriate disposal of such items, including masks and gloves, along with plastic-containing cleaning products, during the current Covid-19 pandemic, may well exacerbate this problem."

The scientists point out that the Thames is cleaner than it used to be with respect to some pollutants, such as trace metals.

Many forms of microplastics were found in the Thames, including glitter, microbeads from cosmetics and plastic fragments from larger items.

The bulk of the microplastics came from the break-down of large plastics, with food packaging thought to be a significant source.

"Flushable" wet wipes were found in high abundance on the shoreline forming "wet wipe reefs".

Study researcher, Katherine McCoy, said, "Our study shows that stricter regulations are needed for the labelling and disposal of these products. There is great scope to further research the impacts of microplastics and indeed microfibres on Thames organisms."

Fibres from washing machine outflows and potentially from sewage outfalls, plus fragments from the breakup of larger plastics, such as packaging items and bottles, which are washed into the river.

Katharine Rowley of Royal Holloway said it's unclear why there's such a high density of plastic in the River Thames, but called for people to think about the plastic they use and throw away.

"People can make much more of a difference than they might think," she said.

Some animals living in the river are ingesting microplastics, including two species of crab.

Crabs contained tangled plastic in their stomachs, including fibres and microplastics from sanitary pads, balloons, elastic bands and carrier bags.

"Upon bringing these crabs back to the labs at Natural History Museum, it was shocking to find that they were full of plastic," said study researcher, Alex McGoran.

"Tangles of plastic were particularly prevalent in the invasive Chinese mitten crab and we still don't fully understand the reason for this."

Clams near the wet wipe "reefs" contained synthetic polymers, some of which may have originated from the wet wipes and other pollutants found on the site such as sanitary items.

Much of the work on microplastics has been carried out in seas and oceans rather than rivers.

By comparison, the Thames has higher quantities of microplastics than levels recorded in the Rhine in Germany, the Danube in Romania, the River Po in Italy and the Chicago River in the US.

However, levels appear lower than those reported for China's Yangzte river.

Other scientists previously tested river sediments at 40 sites throughout Greater Manchester and found "microplastics everywhere".

The latest research was carried out in collaboration with the Natural History Museum and Zoological Society, London.

Dr Paul Clark of the Natural History Museum said, "What our students have shown in this collaboration is that although the Thames is certainly cleaner with regards some chemical pollutants, eg. heavy metals, the River is severely polluted with plastic. And once again our wildlife is threatened."

The research is reported in two papers in Environmental Pollution and in one paper in Science of the Total Environment.

Follow Helen on Twitter.

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River Thames 'severely polluted with plastic'

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The Thames has some of the highest recorded levels of microplastics in the world, a study says.

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Webpage about studying Geography at Bristol (Russell Group and Miss Lilley's alma mater)

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2022 entry

Find a course

UCAS code

F800

Application method

UCAS

Course duration

3 year(s) full-time

Tuition fees

Home students: £9,250 per year

EU students: £25,900 per year

International students: £25,900 per year

Channel Islands and Isle of Man students: £9,250 per year

Further information on tuition fees, living costs and financial support.

Location of course
Clifton campus

Part-time study

Part-time study is not available for this course

Number of applicants accepted for 2020/21

190 overall for all geography programmes in 20/21

About BSc Geography

In year one you will receive an overview of human and physical geography and develop a range of geographical and scientific skills. The remaining years are organised around specialist units from human and/or physical geography.

Physical geography units cover three broad areas: glaciology, hydrology and environmental change. Human geography units provide in-depth study of cultural, economic and social geography, emphasising the importance of theory and methods for analysing contemporary geographical problems and policies. Topics range from economic development and global politics to inequalities of health and contemporary social theory.

You will also develop skills in the use of specialised computer software, statistics and data collection in the field. Field trips and practical work are key components of the course. There are UK residential trips in year one and in year two there is typically an overseas field trip.

The skills that you acquire throughout your studies will be applied in a self-directed dissertation project in year three.

International student scholarships for sciences

Bursaries of £2,500 are now available to help cover accommodation and tuition costs. Find out more about the scholarships.

See a list of all Geography degrees at Bristol, and find more information about the course, assessment and career prospects.

Typical offer for BSc Geography - applicants must meet one of the following

A-level
Standard offer

AAA in any subjects, or AAB in three specified subjects

A-level
Contextual offer
What is a contextual offer?

ABB in any subjects, or BBB in three specified subjects

International Baccalaureate Diploma
Standard offer

36 points overall with 18 at Higher Level, or 34 points overall with 17 at Higher Level, including three specified subjects

International Baccalaureate Diploma
Contextual offer
What is a contextual offer?

32 points overall with 16 at Higher Level, or 31 points overall with 15 at Higher Level, including three specified subjects

Cambridge Pre-U offer

Requirements for principal subjects are as for A-level, where D1/ D2 is A*, D3 is A, M1/ M2 is B, and M3 is C.

Access to HE Diploma offer

Access to HE Diploma in Science, Humanities or Social Sciences (or similar titles). The 45 graded Level 3 credits must include at least 30 credits at Distinction and 15 at Merit or above. Mature students are welcome to contact mature-students@bristol.ac.uk to check the suitability of their Access course.

Mature students can contact mature-students@bristol.ac.uk to check the suitability of their Access course.

BTEC offer

DDD in any Applied General BTEC National Level 3 Extended Diploma.

Scottish Qualifications Authority offer

Advanced Higher: AA, and Standard Higher: AAAAB, or Advanced Higher: AB in two specified subjects, and Standard Higher: AAABB

Welsh Baccalaureate offer

Requirements are as for A-levels, where you can substitute a non-subject specific grade for the Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate at that grade.

European Baccalaureate offer

85% overall, or 80% overall with 8.5, 8.5, 8.0 in three specified subjects

UK qualifications
Further information about UK qualifications

International qualifications
Accepted international qualifications

Specified subjects

Specified subjects include: Biology; Chemistry; Computer Science; Computing; Design and Technology: Product Design 3D; Environmental Science; Further Mathematics; Geography; Geology; Human Biology; Information Communication Technology; Marine Science; Mathematics; Physics; and Statistics.

Applicants must also meet these requirements

How we assess your application

Deferred entry

For this course deferred entry is: Welcomed

Selection process

UCAS

More information

Accreditation

This course is recognised by the following organisations:

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) for the purpose of recognising the delivery of geographical knowledge, understanding, skills, approaches and attributes expected of high quality geography graduates.

Related courses

You may also be interested in:

Key information about this course

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In year one you will receive an overview of human and physical geography and develop a range of geographical and scientific skills. The remaining years are organised around specialist units from human and/or physical geography. Physical geography units cover three broad areas: glaciology, hydrology and environmental change.

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Webpages about studying Geography (BA Human Geog or BSc Physical Geog) at Leeds (Russell Group)

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Find out about studying for a geography degree at Leeds, where you'll tackle pressing social, economic, political and environmental challenges.

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Video about studying Geography at Cambridge (top global university - and best for Geography out of Oxbridge)

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Video about studying Geography at Exeter (Russell Group)

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Video about studying Geography at QMUL (Russell Group)

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Video about studying Geography at Durham (Russell Group)

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Podcast on the global governance of Antarctica 

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In October 1991, an international protocol to protect the world's last wilderness, Antarctica, from commercial exploitation was agreed at a summit in Madrid. Louise Hidalgo talks to one of the environmentalists who led a successful campaign to protect the ice continent. Also, how meditation changes the brain, the Iraqi "supergun affair", and political art in Nigeria.

Picture: Blue icebergs in Antarctica (Credit: Getty Images)

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‎The History Hour: Saving Antarctica on Apple Podcasts

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In October 1991, an international protocol to protect the world's last wilderness, Antarctica, from commercial exploitation was agreed at a summit in Madrid. Louise Hidalgo talks to one of the environmentalists who led a successful campaign to protect the ice continent. Also, how meditation changes...

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4 min video

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&nbsp

What causes the Earth's tides? Find out in this short, Knowledge Insight video from Bangor University.

Attributions and Acknowledgements

"Intimate" music track by Macroform is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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nbsp What causes the Earth's tides? Find out in this short, Knowledge Insight video from Bangor University. Attributions and Acknowledgements "Intimate" music track by Macroform is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Very short clip of wave refraction occurring

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&nbsp

Log in or sign up to manage your videos and for new video alerts

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More Geog' Clips

Do you have a short, geographically interesting video clip like this, to share with geography students and teachers?
Share yours now

Description

Ebb tide waves refracting around a small area of shingle deposit near Whitstable Harbour, Kent. Such beach deposits are common along this stretch of the North Kent Coast, where tidal currents, outflow from nearby rivers (e.g. Swale) and short fetch waves interact. About 500m to the east there is a major depositional feature called 'The Street', a 750m long shingle bank which is visible at low tide. The shingle in this video clip is a microcosm of The Street, providing clues about its formation.

Shared by: Brendan Conway, @mildthing99

Location: Whitstable, Kent, SE England, UK

Captured: 05/11/2017

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Video: Seagull restaurant not quite open yet - wave refraction

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nbsp Log in or sign up to manage your videos and for new video alerts Log in Sign up More Geog' Clips Do you have a short, geographically interesting video clip like this, to share with geography students and teachers? Share yours now Description Ebb tide waves refracting around a small area of shingle deposit near Whitstable Harbour, Kent.

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8 min video

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Description

Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

This video and its companion, created in collaboration with the University of Derby, look at the physical geography of sand dunes, using the case study of Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve:
Sediment cells * Sediment deposition * Sand dune formation * Embryo dunes * Fore dunes * Yellow dunes * Grey dunes * Dune heath (climax)
Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Howard Fox, Toby Tonkin, Sian Davies-Vollum, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker

Videography by: Liam Matthews, Rob Parker, Toby Tonkin
Thank you to Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve for enabling us to film this video. School groups wishing to visit this site can do so by first contacting the National Nature Reserve Office:

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Video: Sand dunes: formation and succession

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This is Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve on the northwest corner of the Wash in Lincolnshire. It's incredible to think that this entire landscape has formed as result of deposition in just a few hundred years. Gibraltar Point lies at the southern end of a sediment cell that stretches from here all the way to Flamborough Head, 116 kilometres to the north.

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Video on the wetland environment this creates (slacks drop below water table level)

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&nbsp

Description

Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

This video and its companion, created in collaboration with the University of Derby, look at the physical geography of sand dunes using the case study Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve:
Fresh water dune slacks * Salt marshes * Coastal wetlands
Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Howard Fox, Toby Tonkin, Sian Davies-Vollum, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker

Videography by: Liam Matthews, Rob Parker, Toby Tonkin
Thank you to Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve for enabling us to film this video. School groups wishing to visit this site can do so by first contacting the National Nature Reserve Office:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
nbsp Description Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography This video and its companion , created in collaboration with the University of Derby, look at the physical geography of sand dunes using the case study Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve: Fresh water dune slacks * Salt marshes * Coastal wetlands Acknowledgements Written and developed by: Howard Fox, Toby Tonkin, Sian Davies-Vollum, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker Videography by: Liam Matthews, Rob Parker, Toby Tonkin Thank you to Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve for enabling us to film this video.

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Understanding the properties and lava features of different volcanoes

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Video: Tectonics, lava and different types of volcano

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nbsp Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography Contents In this video, we team up with volcanologists Dr Emma Lui and Dr Tom Pering, to look at how different types of tectonic activity affect the chemistry and the character of volcanoes.

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Video on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI)

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

Contents

In this video, we look at the size or magnitude of volcanic eruptions, as measured by the volcanic explosivity index (VEI). Our journey takes us from gently flowing lava vents to the global impact of super-eruptions!

Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Tom Pering, Emma Liu, Rob Parker, Dan Boatright, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker, Tony Escritt

Videography by: Vratislav Karas, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley
Special thanks to:
* Dr Emma Liu and collaborators at the University of Bristol for making volcano drone video footage available for use in this video.

Attributions

Mount St. Helens: May 18, 1980 video courtesy of USGS

Image of the Week: 26th Anniversary of Mt. Pinatubo Eruption by the USGS (public domain).

Pāhoehoe Breakout video courtesy of USGS

USGS Status Update of Kīlauea Volcano - May 24, 2018 video courtesy of USGS

Kīlauea Volcano - Video Compilation of Lower East Rift Zone video courtesy of USGS

Eruption of Vesuvius from Pacini's opera L'ultimo giorno di Pompei by Alessandro Sanquirico (public domain).

Volcano-eruption-calbuco-chile-8__880 by Andiseño Estudio (publoc domain).

Kīlauea Volcano - Summit Eruption (May 24, 2018) video courtesy of USGS

Kīlauea Volcano - Aerial of Kīlauea Summit Activity video courtesy of USGS.

Kīlauea Volcano - Fissure 8 Aerial video courtesy of USGS

YasurVolcanoe-Vanuatu-TannaIsland-SmallEruption by Hendrik (public domain).

Crowd in panic by ienba (public domain).

Mount Pinatubo Particle Model by NASA Scientific Visualization Studio.

October 1, 2004 Explosion at Mount St. Helens video courtesy of USGS

How Do Active Volcanoes Change Clouds? video courtesy of NASA

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nbsp Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography Contents In this video, we look at the size or magnitude of volcanic eruptions, as measured by the volcanic explosivity index (VEI). Our journey takes us from gently flowing lava vents to the global impact of super-eruptions!

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9 min video

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

Contents

The Time for Geography team are in Iceland! Together with Iceland experts from Swansea University, Keele University and Trex - Travel Experiences, we investigate how processes deep in the Earth shape the landscapes of our planet!

In this video, we team up with tectonics expert Dr Rhian Meara, to explore the layered structure of the planet Earth:

* Solid inner core

* Liquid outer core

* Mantle (Mesosphere, asthenosphere and lithosphere)

* The crust

Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Rhian Meara, Rich Waller, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tony Escritt, Tim Parker

Videography by: Vratislav Karas, Rob Parker
Special thanks to:

* Tony Escritt for making his excellent footage of Icelandic eruptions available for use in this video.

* Jenny Hobley, Dan Hobley and Chris Macleod for making rare rock and meteorite samples available for use in this video.

Attributions

Diagram of the Earth by Kelvinsong is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (edited and recoloured for animation)

Meteorite crash over Russia 2013 video by Astronomy Today is licensed under CC-BY-3.0

Ansia Orchestra - Through the Space music provided by: MFY - No Copyright

Monkeys Spinning Monkeys music by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under CC-BY-3.0

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography Contents The Time for Geography team are in Iceland! Together with Iceland experts from Swansea University, Keele University and Trex - Travel Experiences, we investigate how processes deep in the Earth shape the landscapes of our planet!

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5 min video

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8 min video

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

How do changing cities create challenges and opportunities?

In this video we team up with human geographers Oli Mould and Mike Dolton from Royal Holloway University of London, to investigate economic, social and political effects of gentrification in London.

Attributions and Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Oli Mould, Mike Dolton, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Simon Ross, Tim Parker

Videography by: Oliver Draper, Rob Parker
Thank you for permission to film this video from:
Wandsworth London Borough Council

Westminster City Council

" Crossrail tunnel looking west" photograph by Matt Brown is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (motion animated into video)

" Holloway Road London (1960s)" photograph by Alan Burnett is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (motion animated into video)

" Notting hill colorful houses" photograph is licensed under CC BY 3.0 (motion animated into video)

" Notting Hill - geograph.org.uk" photograph by Rosalind Mitchell is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (motion animated into video)

" Bob Bekian 1970s" photography by Bob Bekian is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (motion animated into video)

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Video: Gentrification: economic, social and political effects

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If you've spent time in a major city recently, you'll no doubt be well aware of how quickly our cities are changing. Here in London in 2018, this global city is currently undergoing some of the most ambitious building projects it's seen in a generation.

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4 min video

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Course links: GCSE • IGCSE • A-level • IA-level • IB • National 5 • Higher Geography

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5 min video

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

Contents

Carbon on Earth is found in six major stores: the atmosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and fossil fuels. But how does carbon move between these stores?

In the previous video we learned about the flow of carbon through the long-term carbon cycle. In this video, again made in collaboration with Dr Angela Gallego-Sala from the University of Exeter, we continue our journey through the carbon cycle, this time looking at the short-term carbon cycle, which moves 100- to 1000-times more carbon than the long-term carbon cycle, and drives all life on Earth.

Acknowledgments

Written and developed by: Angela Gallego-Sala, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker

Videography by: Josh Carron, Harriet Ridley

Thank you to Dartmoor National Park for enabling us to film this video on Dartmoor.

Attributions

Fire Sound by Free Sounds Library is licensed under CC BY 3.0

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nbsp Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography Contents Carbon on Earth is found in six major stores: the atmosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and fossil fuels. But how does carbon move between these stores?

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Podcast. Useful for NEA idea as well as general knowledge on coastal processes

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In this episode, John spoke to James Pollard, a PhD Candidate at the Department of Geography at Jesus College, Cambridge, about the article he wrote for Geography on climate change and coastal policy. For reference, you can read James' journal article here for free.

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Britain's Most Expensive Home

Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency

Bring Back the Bush: Where Did Our Pubic...

999: What's Your Emergency?

Britain's Most Expensive Home

Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency

Bring Back the Bush: Where Did Our Pubic...

999: What's Your Emergency?

Food Unwrapped

The Supervet: Noel Fitzpatrick

24 Hours in A&E

My Family and the Galapagos

SAS: Who Dares Wins

Travel Man: 48 Hours in...

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Britain's Most Expensive Home Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency Bring Back the Bush: Where Did Our Pubic... 999: What's Your Emergency? Britain's Most Expensive Home Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency Bring Back the Bush: Where Did Our Pubic... 999: What's Your Emergency?

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Antarctica: what it means when the coldest place on Earth records an unprecedented heatwave

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While the world rightfully focuses on the Covid-19 pandemic, the planet is still warming. This summer's Antarctic weather, as elsewhere in the world, was unprecedented in the observed record.

Our research, published today in Global Change Biology, describes the recent heatwave in Antarctica. Beginning in late spring east of the Antarctic Peninsula, it circumnavigated the continent over the next four months. Some of our team spent the summer in Antarctica observing these temperatures and the effect on natural systems, witnessing the heatwave first hand.

Antarctica may be isolated from the rest of the continents by the Southern Ocean, but has worldwide impacts. It drives the global ocean conveyor belt, a constant system of deep-ocean circulation which transfers oceanic heat around the planet, and its melting ice sheet adds to global sea level rise.

Antarctica represents the simple, extreme end of conditions for life. It can be seen as a "canary in the mine", demonstrating patterns of change we can expect to see elsewhere.

A satellite image showing melting on the ice cap of Eagle Island, Antarctica, on 13 February. Photograph: NASA Earth Observatory

A heatwave in the coldest place on Earth

Most of Antarctica is ice-covered, but there are small ice-free oases, predominantly on the coast. Collectively 0.44% of the continent, these unique areas are important biodiversity hotspots for penguins and other seabirds, mosses, lichens, lakes, ponds and associated invertebrates.

This summer, Casey Research Station, in the Windmill Islands oasis, experienced its first recorded heatwave. For three days, minimum temperatures exceeded zero and daily maximums were all above 7.5C. On 24 January, its highest maximum of 9.2C was recorded, almost 7C above Casey's 30-year mean for the month.

The arrival of warm, moist air during this weather event brought rain to Davis Research Station in the normally frigid, ice-free desert of the Vestfold Hills. The warm conditions triggered extensive meltwater pools and surface streams on local glaciers. These, together with melting snowbanks, contributed to high-flowing rivers and flooding lakes.

By February, most heat was concentrated in the Antarctic Peninsula at the northernmost part of the continent. A new Antarctic maximum temperature of 18.4C was recorded on 6 February at Argentina's Esperanza research station on the peninsula - almost 1C above the previous record. Three days later this was eclipsed when 20.75C was reported at Argentina's Marambio station, on Seymour Island east of the peninsula.

The difference between mean surface air temperatures for January 2020 from the January average over the preceding 40 years. Photograph: Andrew Klekociuk/The Conversation

What caused the heatwave?

The pace of warming from global climate change has been generally slower in East Antarctica compared with West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. This is in part due to the ozone hole, which has occurred in spring over Antarctica since the late 1970s.

The hole has tended to strengthen jet stream winds over the Southern Ocean, promoting a generally more "positive" state of the Southern Annular Mode in summer. This means the Southern Ocean's westerly wind belt has tended to stay close to Antarctica at that time of year creating a seasonal "shield", reducing the transfer of warm air from the Earth's temperate regions to Antarctica.

But during the spring of 2019 a strong warming of the stratosphere over Antarctica significantly reduced the size of the ozone hole. This helped to support a more "negative" state of the Southern Annular Mode and weakened the shield.

Other factors in late 2019 may have also helped to warm Antarctica. The Indian Ocean Dipole was in a strong "positive" state due to a late retreat of the Indian monsoon. This meant that water in the western Indian Ocean was warmer than normal. Air rising from this and other warm ocean patches in the Pacific Ocean provided energy sources that altered the path of weather systems and helped to disturb and warm the stratosphere.

Is a warming Antarctica good or bad?

Localised flooding appeared to benefit some of Vestfold Hills' moss banks that were previously very drought-stressed. Prior to the flood event, most mosses were grey and moribund, but a month later many moss shoots were green.

Given the generally cold conditions of Antarctica, the warmth may have benefited the flora (mosses, lichens and two vascular plants) and microbes and invertebrates, but only where liquid water formed. Areas in the Vestfold Hills away from the flooding became more drought-stressed over the summer.

Moss at Mossel Lake, Vestfold Hills, photographed before the heatwave events (13 Dec 2019, left) and after snowmelt (22 January 2020, right). Some mosses responded to the additional water by greening up very quickly. Photograph: Australian Antarctic Division/Dana M Bergstrom

High temperatures may have caused heat stress in some organisms. Antarctic mosses and lichens are often dark in colour, allowing sunlight to be absorbed to create warm microclimates. This is a great strategy when temperatures are just above freezing, but heat stress can occur once 10C is exceeded.

On King George Island, near the Antarctic Peninsula, our measurements showed that in January 2019 moss surface temperatures exceeded 14C for only 3% of the time, but in 2020 this increased fourfold (to 12% of the time).

Based on our experience from previous anomalous hot Antarctic summers, we can expect many biological impacts, positive and negative, in coming years. The most recent event highlights the connectedness of our climate systems: from the surface to the stratosphere, and from the monsoon tropics to the southernmost continent.

Under climate change, extreme events are predicted to increase in frequency and severity, and Antarctica is not immune.

Dana M Bergstrom is principal research scientist at the Antarctic Division and a visiting scholar at the University of Wollongong; Andrew Klekociuk is an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania; Diana King is a research officer at the University of Wollongong; and Sharon Robinson is professor at the University of Wollongong.

This article was first published by the Conversation. You can read the original piece here.

This article was amended on 2 April 2020 because Marambio ​s​tation is Argentinian​,​ not Brazilian​ as an earlier version said​.

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Antarctica: what it means when the coldest place on Earth records an unprecedented heatwave

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While the world rightfully focuses on the Covid-19 pandemic, the planet is still warming. This summer's Antarctic weather, as elsewhere in the world, was unprecedented in the observed record. Our research, published today in Global Change Biology, describes the recent heatwave in Antarctica.

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Sandy - Anatomy of a Superstorm 2012 (BBC HD 720p)

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Ask each other (and Miss Lilley) questions

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Even large ecosystems the size of the Amazon rainforest can collapse in a few decades, according to a study that shows bigger biomes break up relatively faster than small ones.

The research reveals that once a tipping point has been passed, breakdowns do not occur gradually like an unravelling thread, but rapidly like a stack of Jenga bricks after a keystone piece has been dislodged.

The authors of the study, published on Tuesday in the Nature Communications journal, said the results should warn policymakers they had less time than they realised to deal with the multiple climate and biodiversity crises facing the world.

To examine the relationship between an ecosystem's size and the speed of its collapse, the authors looked at 42 previous cases of "regime shift". This is the term used to describe a change from one state to another - for example, the collapse of fisheries in Newfoundland, the death of vegetation in the Sahel, desertification of agricultural lands in Niger, bleaching of coral reefs in Jamaica, and the eutrophication of Lake Erhai in China.

They found that bigger and more complex biomes were initially more resilient than small, biologically simpler systems. However, once the former hit a tipping point, they collapse relatively faster because failures repeat throughout their modular structure. As a result, the bigger the ecosystem, the harder it is likely to fall.

Based on their statistical analysis, the authors estimate an ecosystem the size of the Amazon (approximately 5.5m km ²) could collapse in approximately 50 years once a tipping point had been reached. For a system the size of the Caribbean coral reefs (about 20,000 km ²), collapse could occur in 15 years once triggered.

The paper concludes: "We must prepare for regime shifts in any natural system to occur over the 'human' timescales of years and decades, rather than multigenerational timescales of centuries and millennia.

"Humanity now needs to prepare for changes in ecosystems that are faster than we previously envisaged through our traditional linear view of the world, including across Earth's largest and most iconic ecosystems, and the social-ecological systems that they support."

The paper says this could be the case in Australia where the recent Australian bushfires followed protracted periods of drought and may indicate a shift to a drier ecosystem.

Scientists were already aware that systems tended to decline much faster than they grew but the new study quantifies and explains this trend.

"What is new is that we are showing this is part of a wider story. The larger the system, the greater the fragility and the proportionately quicker collapses," John Dearing, professor in physical geography at the University of Southampton and lead author of the study, said.

"What we are saying is don't be taken in by the longevity of these systems just because they may have been around for thousands, if not millions, of years - they will collapse much more rapidly than we think."

Dearing said he was concerned that one of the possible implications of the study was that complete destruction of the Amazon could occur within his grandchildren's lifetimes.

"This is a paper that is satisfying from a scientific point of view, but worrying from a personal point of view. You'd rather not come up with such a set of results," he said.

A separate study last week warned the Amazon could shift within the next decade into a source of carbon emissions rather than a sink, because of damage caused by loggers, farmers and global heating.

Experts said the new findings should be a spur to action.

"I think the combination of theory, modelling and observations is especially persuasive in this paper, and should alert us to risks from human activities that perturb the large and apparently stable ecosystems upon which we depend," said Georgina Mace, professor of biodiversity and ecosystems at University College London, who was not involved in the studies.

"There are effective actions that we can take now, such as protecting the existing forest, managing it to maintain diversity, and reducing the direct pressures from logging, burning, clearance and climate change."

These views were echoed by Ima Vieira, an ecologist at Museu Emílio Goeldi in Belém, Brazil. "This is a very important paper. For Brazil to avoid the ecosystem collapse modelled in this study, we need to strengthen governance associated to imposing heavy fines on companies with dirty supply chains, divestment strategies targeting key violators and enforcement of existing laws related to environmental crimes. And we have to be quick."

However, the methodology was not universally accepted. Erika Berenguer, a senior research associate at the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, said the regime shifts paper relied too much on data from lakes and oceans to be useful as an indicator of what would happen to rainforests.

"While there is no doubt the Amazon is at great risk and that a tipping point is likely, such inflated claims do not help either science or policy making," she said.

The authors said their study was not a forecast about a specific region but a guide to the speed at which change could occur.

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Ecosystems the size of Amazon 'can collapse within decades'

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Even large ecosystems the size of the Amazon rainforest can collapse in a few decades, according to a study that shows bigger biomes break up relatively faster than small ones. The research reveals that once a tipping point has been passed, breakdowns do not occur gradually like an unravelling thread, but rapidly like a stack of Jenga bricks after a keystone piece has been dislodged.

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The "cyclist-first" city of Utrecht is constructing the Netherlands' first high-density, car-free residential district for more than 12,000 people, making it one of the largest of its type in the world.

The 24-hectare site, located between two canals in the middle of the city, is a business park but by 2024 it is hoped the area will enhance Utrecht's reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe.

The Dutch city built the Netherlands' first bike lane in 1885 and last year it unveiled the world's largest multistorey bike park area with space to accommodate 12,500 bicycles of all shapes and sizes.

The new-build Merwede district of 6,000 homes is expected to be serviced by about 20,000 bicycles.

"It should be easier to get a bike than it should be to get a car," the project's architect, Marco Broekman, said of the philosophy behind the development.

Construction on the first homes is expected in 2022. Two new primary schools and health centres, a high school, a sports centre and shops and businesses will also be built on the site, which will be accessible to the rest of the city, the fourth largest in the Netherlands, by bike lanes and trams.

Only four dead-end roads of 60 metres in length will protrude into the car-free idyll to allow "logistical" access for petrol-guzzling vehicles into the district's outer fringes.

Underground garages alongside the "logistical roads" will offer 1,800 parking spaces for those who cannot quit their addiction to the car, equating to one car for every three households.

The parking spaces will be available for use at a heavy cost and are to remain unassigned to dissuade use. Alongside them will be 300 shared cars for residents' use. The closest alternative parking will be 3km away.

For shopping deliveries, and for the removal of rubbish from the new car-free streets, it is expected small electric vehicles will be deployed to trundle from the "logistical roads" to the homes and back.

The Merwede district will boast the largest underground heat and cold storage facility in the Netherlands, using water from the Merwedekanaal to cool it. The roofs of the district's buildings will be filled with greenery or solar panels, which would cover three hectares if put side to side.

Broekman said he and his collaborators had been inspired by smaller-scale projects in Paris and a 600-home development in Amsterdam's Gemeente Waterleiding district, but that he believed the scale of the project was unique.

He said: "By having this car-free area, we can design spaces without the straitjacket rules of the car, and thus focus on essentials for a high-density area, which is the quality of public space, city on eye level, green, biodiversity, climate adaptation and meeting places for social interaction."

Kees Diepeveen, the alderman responsible for the city district, known as the Merwedekanaalzone, said Utrecht was rapidly growing and the behaviour of its citizens was changing as quickly.

He said: "We have the highest number of shared cars [per capita] in the Netherlands. It is amazing to see how the average household is changing its habits. This especially counts for the younger generations."

Merwede, a third of whose land is owned by the municipality with the rest belonging to private entities, follows the example of Vauban in Germany, which is home to more than 5,000 people.

Residents there must confirm once a year that they do not own a car or otherwise purchase a space in a multistorey car park on the edge of the district. A space was initially provided for every two households, but car ownership has fallen over time, and many of spaces now lie empty.

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Forward-thinking Utrecht builds car-free district for 12,000 people

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The "cyclist-first" city of Utrecht is constructing the Netherlands' first high-density, car-free residential district for more than 12,000 people, making it one of the largest of its type in the world. The 24-hectare site, located between two canals in the middle of the city, is a business park but by 2024 it is hoped the area will enhance Utrecht's reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe.

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Carbon sink

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Economist (@theeconomist)

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Inequality / deviation from equal distribution of wealth

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It is drawn as a cumulative income curve. A population is divided into quintiles: The richest quintile is the 20% of households with the highest disposable income. Similarly, the poorest quintile is the 20% of households with the lowest disposable income.

The Lorenz Curve can then be contrasted with the line of perfect equality to show the scale of income and wealth inequality in a country.

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It is drawn as a cumulative income curve. A population is divided into quintiles: The richest quintile is the 20% of households with the highest disposable income. Similarly, the poorest quintile is the 20% of households with the lowest disposable income.

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Contemporary sustainability issues in urban areas

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Contemporary sustainability issues in urban areas Waste Management

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Influence of shipping containers on globalisation 

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Influence of shipping containers on globalisation 

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9 min podcast

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‎50 Things That Made the Modern Economy: Shipping Container on Apple Podcasts

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‎Show 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy, Ep Shipping Container - 19 Nov 2016

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Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C.

The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent's peninsula, beats Antarctica's previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015.

A tweet from Argentina's meteorological agency on Friday revealed the record. The station's data goes back to 1961.

#Antártida | Nuevo récord de temperaturas 🌡️

Este mediodía la Base #Esperanza registró un nuevo récord histórico (desde 1961) de temperatura, con 18,3°C. Con este valor se supera el récord anterior de 17,5°C del 24 en marzo de 2015. Y no fue el único récord... pic.twitter.com/rhKsPFytCb
- SMN Argentina (@SMN_Argentina) February 6, 2020

Antarctica's peninsula - the area that points towards South America - is one of the fastest warming places on earth, heating by almost 3C over the past 50 years, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Almost all the region's glaciers are melting.

The Esperanza reading breaks the record for the Antarctic continent. The record for the Antarctic region - that is, everywhere south of 60 degrees latitude - is 19.8C, taken on Signy Island in January 1982.

Prof James Renwick, a climate scientist at Victoria University of Wellington, was a member of an ad-hoc World Meteorological Organization committee that has verified previous records in Antarctica.

He told Guardian Australia it was likely the committee would be reconvened to check the new Esperanza record.

He said: "Of course the record does need to be checked, but pending those checks, it's a perfectly valid record and that [temperature] station is well maintained."

"The reading is impressive as it's only five years since the previous record was set and this is almost one degree centigrade higher. It's a sign of the warming that has been happening there that's much faster than the global average.

"To have a new record set that quickly is surprising but who knows how long that will last? Possibly not that long at all."

He said the temperature record at Esperanza was one of the longest-running on the whole continent.

Renwick said higher temperatures in the region tended to coincide with strong northwesterly winds moving down mountain slopes - a feature of the weather patterns around Esperanza in recent days.

He said there were complex weather patterns in the area, but the Esperanza reading was likely a combination of natural variability and background warming caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

He said: "The reason the peninsula is warming faster than other places is a combination of natural variations and warming signals."

Prof Nerilie Abram, a climate scientist at the Australian National University, has carried out research at James Ross Island at the northern tip of the peninsula.

"It's an area that's warming very quickly," she said, adding it can occasionally be warm enough to wear a T-shirt.

Previous research from 2012 found the current rate of warming in the region was almost unprecedented over the past 2000 years.

Abram said: "Even small increases in warming can lead to large increases in the energy you have for melting the ice. The consequences are the collapse of the ice shelves along the peninsula."

Meltwater can work its way through cracks in ice shelves, she said. Because ice shelves already float on the ocean, their collapse does not directly contribute to rising sea levels.

But Abram said the shelves acted as plugs, helping to keep the ice sheets behind them stable. Melting of ice sheets does contribute to rising sea levels because they are attached to land.

Dr Steve Rintoul, a leading oceanographer and Antarctic expert at CSIRO, said: "This is a record from only a single station, but it is in the context of what's happening elsewhere and is more evidence that as the planet warms we get more warm records and fewer cold records."

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica - and anywhere on Earth - was at the Russian Vostok station, when temperatures dropped to -89.2C on 21 July 1983.

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Antarctica logs hottest temperature on record with a reading of 18.3C

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Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C. The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent's peninsula, beats Antarctica's previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015.

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By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent

Even if global warming can be kept to a 1.5-degree Celsius rise from pre-industrial times, the Antarctic Peninsula is set for some big changes.

The group says reaching the threshold will likely result in a 50-150% increase in the number of days a year the frozen peninsula spends above zero.

But although this means more melting, the team also stresses the "benefits" that come from not breaching 1.5C.

Keeping below this figure should allow the peninsula to hang on to its remaining ice shelves, they argue.

That's important because these floating platforms of ice that fringe the long spine of mountainous land work to hold back glaciers, preventing them from dumping more ice into the ocean and raising sea-levels.

Recent decades have seen a dozen or so shelves either disintegrate or lose significant volume, as the peninsula has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet.

"A 1.5-degree world" increases the likelihood of thinning and iceberg production, according to the panel. However, it's possible the largest ice shelves can still retain sufficient integrity to avoid further catastrophic failures.

"Under 1.5, we don't expect ice shelves to be lost - but under more warming they look far more vulnerable with consequences for sea-level and other impacts," explained Prof Martin Siegert from Imperial College London, UK.

"The 'benefits' of 1.5 need to be explained - and we're trying to explain that while the peninsula is locked into change. It's still possible to avoid severe problems that would change the peninsula beyond recognition and without historic precedence," he told BBC News.

Prof Siegert and colleagues from UK and US institutions have written a briefing note that is being presented to an Antarctic Treaty meeting on Tuesday by the British Foreign Office.

It sets out the consequences for the peninsula of a further half-degree rise in global temperature (the world has already warmed by about 1C since 1850). 1.5C is the preferred target to limit warming set out in the Paris climate agreement.

The scientists stress that any rise will almost certainly be amplified in the polar regions.

The extra half a degree globally is likely to translate in the Antarctic Peninsula to an increase of 1-2C in winter and 0.5-1.0C in summer.

According to the panel's assessment, this is expected to:

raise the number of above-freezing days per year to 35-130, from 25-80 now

increase the amount of rain, snow and ice melt, and surface run-off

increase ocean turbulence, delivering more heat to the sea surface and coast

make sea-ice extent west of the Antarctic Peninsula more variable

accelerate the retreat of coastal glaciers and the production of icebergs

increase the production of meltwater that forms on the top of ice shelves

push marine life further south and open the peninsula to more alien species

Co-author Prof David Vaughan, the director of science at the British Antarctic Survey, commented: "Local warming in the Antarctic Peninsula over the last few decades has been higher than almost anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere.

"If similar high levels of local warming occur in the future, magnifying rates of change on the Antarctic Peninsula, then summer melt will move south and ice shelves that have not yet shown any progressive retreat or collapse could be threatened.

"Larsen-C is probably the most vulnerable on the east coast and, if we're unlucky, could be impacted in the next couple of decades," he told BBC News.

One mechanism that may mitigate the impact on ice shelves is if ponding meltwater can form efficient rivers that drain across and away from the platforms, rather than filtering down through crevasses.

It's the downward movement of meltwater that can open up fissures, driving them through to the base of a shelf.

This process, known as hydrofracturing, will weaken the structure. But there are examples where the meltwater finds an easier route to the sea via a network of channels cut in the top of a shelf.

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Climate change: Antarctic Peninsula 'can still avoid irreversible change'

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By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent Even if global warming can be kept to a 1.5-degree Celsius rise from pre-industrial times, the Antarctic Peninsula is set for some big changes. The group says reaching the threshold will likely result in a 50-150% increase in the number of days a year the frozen peninsula spends above zero.

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Not completed (not all are finalised plans)

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Global governance

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The following text was adopted at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Peru, May/June 1999, as an introduction to the Antarctic Treaty, particularly for intending visitors to the Antarctic:

Introducing The Antarctic Treaty

There are few places in the world where there has never been war, where the environment is fully protected, and where scientific research has priority. But there is a whole continent like this - it is the land the Antarctic Treaty parties call "... a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science".

At the southern end of our world, those who share the challenges of distance and cold to visit the ice-bound continent have developed a tradition of warm cooperation. Such cooperation, unique on this scale, is cemented by the Antarctic Treaty.

As a visitor to Antarctica, you will be privileged to enter this world. This document will tell you a little about the Antarctic Treaty, and why it is a unique agreement - for a unique place.

Background

The Antarctic continent is vast. It embraces the South Pole with permanent ice and snow. It is encircled by floating barriers of ice, stormy seas and appalling weather. Its great altitude chills the air to extremes, and its descent to sea level across a moving ice sheet generates the world's strongest winds. The cycling seasons reveal the spectacular natural forces of our planet. The surrounding seas teem with wildlife. And just 2% of this continent is free of ice, allowing a small toe-hold for hardy animals and plants.

The weather and isolation dominate all who visit. The discovery and exploration of Antarctica was shaped by the continent's remoteness and its extraordinarily inhospitable environment. These factors combined for centuries to keep humans away from all but the subantarctic islands and parts of the Southern Ocean where whaling and sealing took place. In human historic terms, the land exploration of Antarctica is recent, most of it being accomplished during the twentieth century.

The improved technology and knowledge of the last 100 years allowed greater access to the continent, encouraging detailed surveying and research, and the gradual occupation of Antarctica by scientific stations. By mid-century, permanent stations were being established and planning was underway for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957-58, the first substantial multi-nation research program in Antarctica. By mid-century, territorial positions had also been asserted, but not agreed, creating a tension that threatened future scientific cooperation.

The IGY was recognised as pivotal to the scientific understanding of Antarctica. The twelve nations active in Antarctica, nine of which made territorial claims or reserved the right to do so, agreed that their political and legal differences should not interfere with the research program. The outstanding success of the IGY led these nations to agree that peaceful scientific cooperation in the Antarctic should continue indefinitely. Negotiation of such an agreement, the Antarctic Treaty, commenced immediately after the IGY.

The Antarctic Treaty

The Antarctic Treaty was signed in Washington on 1 December 1959 by the twelve nations that had been active during the IGY (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States and USSR). The Treaty, which applies to the area south of 60° South latitude, is surprisingly short, but remarkably effective. Through this agreement, the countries active in Antarctica consult on the uses of a whole continent, with a commitment that it should not become the scene or object of international discord. In its fourteen articles the Treaty:

stipulates that Antarctica should be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, military activities, such as the establishment of military bases or weapons testing, are specifically prohibited;

guarantees continued freedom to conduct scientific research, as enjoyed during the IGY;

promotes international scientific cooperation including the exchange of research plans and personnel, and requires that results of research be made freely available;

sets aside the potential for sovereignty disputes between Treaty parties by providing that no activities will enhance or diminish previously asserted positions with respect to territorial claims, provides that no new or enlarged claims can be made, and makes rules relating to jurisdiction;

prohibits nuclear explosions and the disposal of radioactive waste;

provides for inspection by observers, designated by any party, of ships, stations and equipment in Antarctica to ensure the observance of, and compliance with, the Treaty;

requires parties to give advance notice of their expeditions; provides for the parties to meet periodically to discuss measures to further the objectives of the Treaty; and

puts in place a dispute settlement procedure and a mechanism by which the Treaty can be modified.

The Treaty also provides that any member of the United Nations can accede to it. The Treaty now has 52 signatories, 28 are Consultative Parties on the basis of being original signatories or by conducting substantial research there. Membership continues to grow. A full list of the current parties to the Treaty appears at the end of this document.

Since entering into force on 23 June 1961, the Treaty has been recognised as one of the most successful international agreements. Problematic differences over territorial claims have been effectively set aside and as a disarmament regime it has been outstandingly successful. The Treaty parties remain firmly committed to a system that is still effective in protecting their essential Antarctic interests. Science is proceeding unhindered.

Since the first Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) in 1961, the parties have met frequently, now annually, to discuss issues as diverse as scientific cooperation, measures to protect the environment, and operational issues - and they are committed to taking decisions by consensus. This process has allowed the Antarctic Treaty to evolve into a system with a number of components that meet the special needs of managing activities in the Antarctic, while protecting national interests. This regime is now known by the broader title of the Antarctic Treaty System, which operates under the umbrella of the annual ATCM.

The Antarctic Treaty System

The Antarctic Treaty System comprises the Treaty itself and a number of related agreements. It also includes a range of organisations that contribute to the work of the decision-making forums.

In addition to the related agreements (described below), the Treaty System includes the recommendations, measures, decisions and resolutions of the Consultative Meetings relating to matters such as:

scientific cooperation;

protection of the Antarctic environment;

conservation of plants and animals;

preservation of historic sites;

designation and management of protected areas;

management of tourism;

information exchange;

collection of meteorological data;

hydrographic charting;

logistic cooperation; and

communications and safety.

The Treaty Parties have put in place rules relating to specific issues. The development of these agreements has allowed the implementation, with greater precision, of legally binding provisions for the regulation of activities in Antarctica.

Related organisations

Apart from the legal instruments and measures outlined above, a number of specialised bodies assist the Treaty parties in the conduct of their work. Specific tasks may be directed to these bodies, or they may be invited to provide observers or experts to participate in Treaty forums.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) coordinates Antarctic research programs and encourages scientific cooperation. Through its various subordinate groups it is able to provide expert information on a range of disciplines and on the scientific implications of operational proposals of the Treaty meetings.

The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs comprises the heads of each of the national Antarctic operating agencies. COMNAP meets annually to exchange logistic information, encourage cooperation and develop advice to the Treaty parties on a range of practical matters.

The Antarctic Treaty parties have also developed a close relationship with environmental inter-governmental and non-government organisations that represent the broader community interests in conservation. Organisations such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the United Nations Environment Program and the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition are also invited to the Treaty meetings as experts.

Bodies with technical expertise relevant to the Treaty discussions also participate. They include the International Hydrographic Organisation, the World Meteorological Organisation and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators is an industry body representing the interests of the growing tourist trade in Antarctica. Many tour operators are affiliated with IAATO, which also provides experts to the annual Treaty meetings.

Conclusion

The Treaty provided that any party could call for a review conference after the expiration of 30 years. No party has done so. In 1991, on the thirtieth anniversary of the Treaty, the parties recognised the continuing strength and relevance of the Treaty by adopting a declaration recording their determination to maintain and strengthen the Treaty and to protect Antarctica's environmental and scientific values.

Under the Treaty, each party has enjoyed peaceful cooperation and freedom of scientific research. That research has contributed significantly to knowledge of the Earth and is contributing to the protection of the global environment. Environmental monitoring in Antarctica has, for example, led to the discovery of the seasonal depletion of atmospheric ozone over the Antarctic.

As the Antarctic Treaty System matures it has become recognised as one of the most successful sets of international agreements, setting an example of peaceful cooperation for the rest of the world.

As an environmental regime it is unique - an entire continent, which is essentially undisturbed, will remain protected because of the commitment and cooperation of the Treaty parties.

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The Antarctic Treaty Explained - British Antarctic Survey

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The following text was adopted at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Peru, May/June 1999, as an introduction to the Antarctic Treaty, particularly for intending visitors to the Antarctic: There are few places in the world where there has never been war, where the environment is fully protected, and where scientific research has priority.

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Original plans for Wembley Park

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Before Wembley got its world famous football stadium, a Victorian railway magnate had even grander plans to turn the borough's marshy fields into London's answer to the Eiffel Tower.

Sir Edward Watkin's plan was simple but ambitious - build the tallest structure in the world. The railway magnate had been inspired by the 984ft (300m) tall Eiffel Tower, which was unveiled beside the River Seine in 1889.

He wanted London to have one of its own.

"Like other Victorian men of the era he wanted to make his impact on the world," said Jason Sayer, of the London School of Architecture. "The tower was to be his legacy."

The Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest man-made structure when construction finished in 1889.

Initially derided by some for being a monstrous addition to the city's fine architecture, it went on to become a global tourist attraction, recouping its £260,000 construction costs in the first seven months and becoming the perennial back drop for Parisian postcards.

Sir Edward wanted Great Britain to have an equivalent. But, instead of building a rival tower in central London, he believed a marsh on the city's outskirts would be the perfect spot.

He had bought 280 acres of land in the Wembley area as part of his grand scheme to build an entire new community, connected to the city of London by the Metropolitan Railway, of which he had been chairman since 1872.

His tower was meant to be the beacon for his new suburban paradise, comfortable homes set in pleasant parklands just a 12 minute train ride from Baker Street station.

The poor would be able to swap the over-crowded disease-infested streets of central London for healthy country air. His park would also encourage city-dwellers to enjoy days out on his railway, with a trip up the tower being the icing on the cake.

"There was a lot of British pride going around at the time and he wanted to typify the country's global achievements," Mr Sayer said. "Part of it was down to him trying to do some public good, although how much the public needs a tower is debatable, but mostly it was down to his own ego."

His park, which included a boating lake, waterfall and various sporting grounds, opened in May 1894 and quickly became popular with some 100,000 visitors in its first few months. Those ambling lazily around the large green gardens would have heard the heavy clanking of metal as work continued on Sir Edward's tower.

But work was not going well.

It had been designed by the London architects Stewart, McLaren and Dunn, who had seen off 67 competitors for the 500 Guinea prize.

Sir Edward had actually approached Gustave Eiffel to take on his tower, but the architect of the Parisian masterpiece politely declined, fearing his compatriots might think him "not so good a Frenchman as I hope I am" if he helped the English build a bigger tower than France's.

Some of the designs had been fantastical and patently impractical, if not impossible.

One was a 2,000ft high tower shaped like a multi-tiered wedding cake with a working railway spiralling up it. Another was described as an "aerial colony" complete with hanging vegetable gardens and a scale replica of the Great Pyramid on its summit.

Stewart, McLaren and Dunn's winning entry closely resembled the Eiffel Tower, although it was made of steel as opposed to iron and, at 1,150ft (350m), was some 165ft (50m) taller than the Parisian centrepiece.

It was to feature a 90-bedroom hotel, restaurant, theatre, shops, Turkish baths, winter gardens and promenades, as well as a weather station and observatory at the top.

But Wembley was the wrong place for such a project for two main reasons. Firstly, the ground was muddy and marshy and prone to subsidence.

The first stage of the tower, consisting of four giant legs supporting a plateau 155ft (47m) in the air, was completed a short while after the park's opening. But it was soon developing an ominous lean that was even more pronounced two years later.

Secondly, it was too far from central London.

"Wembley was not the equivalent of the location of the Eiffel Tower to put it mildly," said Christopher Costelloe, director of the Victorian Society. "People would get there and find there was not much to see, certainly no panoramic view of London.

"If he had built it in Hyde Park it would probably have been a roaring success."

Sir Edward's hopes that his even partially built tower would enjoy the same immediate success as the Eiffel Tower were quickly dashed. Public interest in it waned with visitors donating only £27,000 of the £220,000 required. Sir Edward ploughed £100,000 of his own money into it, but by the end of 1894, work had ceased.

In a bid to reignite public excitement, lifts were installed in 1896 to allow people to get up to the platform. However, during its first six months only 18,500 people paid to do so. The tower once mooted to be named after Queen Victoria became known instead as the "Shareholders' Dismay", "London Stump" and "Watkin's Folly".

Sir Edward, who had also made an ill-fated attempt to dig a Channel tunnel in the 1880s, died in 1901. The following year his much-vaunted tower was closed to the public and in 1906 it was finally torn down.

Though Sir Edward's tower was a failure, his vision for Wembley was not. The park's leisure facilities proved popular and became a venue for large-scale gatherings.

Wembley's place in the list of global icons would be assured when, in 1923, a magnificent new stadium, complete with twin towers, opened to host the FA Cup final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United.

In 2002, when the stadium was torn down to be replaced by another landmark ground, workmen found large concrete foundations beneath the pitch. They were the first and last pieces of London's answer to the Eiffel Tower.

More on this story

Related Internet Links

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Watkin's Wembley folly: London's 'Eiffel Tower' that never was

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Before Wembley got its world famous football stadium, a Victorian railway magnate had even grander plans to turn the borough's marshy fields into London's answer to the Eiffel Tower. Sir Edward Watkin's plan was simple but ambitious - build the tallest structure in the world.

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Wildfires

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NSW firefighters are "giving their all" to contain large and complex bushfires before conditions worsen amid forecast high temperatures and dry winds.

After a devastating end to last week - when two firefighters were killed and as many as 100 houses were destroyed in the state - firefighters have taken advantage of milder conditions to strengthen containment lines.

Almost 1,300 firefighters were in the field on Friday morning as 70 bush and grass blazes continued to burn, with 33 of them uncontained.

NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said firefighters had been doing "really difficult ... challenging work" in areas like the Blue Mountains and South Coast.

They had been establishing containment and control lines with hand tools and machinery, along with extensive backburning, Fitzsimmons told Seven's Sunrise on Friday.

"Because these fires are large, they're complex and they're very prone to the elements, once these weather conditions turn around, we know we're going to see increased fire activity," he said.

"So they're just giving their all to shore up protection and trying to consolidate and contain them as much as they can."

Meanwhile, NSW Emergency Services Minister David Elliott is going on a family holiday overseas, with Counter Terrorism and Corrections Minister Anthony Roberts acting in the role from Friday.

Elliott, who postponed the break once previously and has recently lost family members, said he would continue to receive two briefings each day from the RFS commissioner and stay in contact with his office and other authorities.

"If the bushfire situation should demand it, I will return home without hesitation," he said in a statement.

Earlier in December Prime Minister Scott Morrison was widely criticised for going on holiday in Hawaii when raging bushfires threatened lives and homes in Australia.

Fitzsimmons told ABC News on Friday Elliot's leave would not stop work on the firefighting effort.

"I'll be maintaining contact with Minister Elliott while he's away, and I'll be maintaining a very close relationship with the acting minister," he said.

The Bureau of Meteorology expects the fire danger to worsen into the new week with increasing heat and winds.

Temperatures on Tuesday are forecast to reach maximums of 43C in Penrith, 35C in Katoomba, 40C in Picton, 36C in Griffith and 40C in Mudgee.

Fitzsimmons said they were not expecting previous catastrophic conditions to return, but firefighters and communities would be challenged at the end of this week and early into next week.

"It's certainly going to be another tough period with temperatures up into the 40s, very dry air, very low humidities and the winds turning back around from the west and the northwest," he told the ABC.

Very high fire danger is forecast for nine NSW regions on Friday including the ACT, Greater Hunter and central and southern ranges.

Highs of 36C are expected in Canberra, while regional centres such as Mudgee, Goulburn, Tamworth, Dubbo and Griffith are set for days above 35C.

The federal government, meanwhile, has extended the Australian disaster recovery payment to the mid-western local government area of NSW, enabling payments of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child to those worst hit by bushfires.

A statewide code red was declared in South Australia on Friday to provide extra help for homeless people as temperatures soar.

Adelaide was forecast to reach 40C on Friday with the mercury tipped to stay at least in the high 30s until Monday.

Human Services Minister Michelle Lensink said increasing services to the homeless was vital in the extreme heat.

"Keeping vulnerable South Australians safe and well in the extreme heat forecast over the next few days is our priority," she said.

"During a code red, agencies across Adelaide will extend their daytime operating hours to ensure people sleeping rough are keeping cool and well-hydrated during the extreme heat."

SA's looming heatwave is the second so far in December after last week's run of four days with temperatures in the mid-to-high 40s.

On Friday the hottest spots were expected to be in the state's north with 45C maximums forecast for Oodnadatta, Oak Valley and Tarcoola.

The heatwave will reach Victoria on Friday bringing temperatures over 40C across the whole state during the weekend.

As the weather starts heating up before it drops again on New Year's Eve, emergency services have urged Victorians to be extremely aware of weather conditions.

Statewide heat alerts will be in place on Saturday and Sunday. Melbourne is forecast to reach 43C in some suburbs on Monday.

New fires have also been deemed as likely to start as a result of dry lightning, particularly in the east of the state.

Authorities urged people to be aware of potentially dangerous fire conditions, particularly in East Gippsland.

Plans to walk, hike, cycle or or drive in remote parks and forests were discouraged, as new fires can quickly threaten lives.

Significant fires burning may impact communities from the Great Dividing Range to the coast between Bairnsdale and Marlo.

The fires in East Gippsland have been burning since 21 November, burning more than 100,000 hectares while travelling more than 1,000km.

Smoke from fires burning in Gippsland and NSW is currently affecting air quality in the north-east of Victoria.

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NSW firefighters 'give their all' ahead of worsening conditions

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NSW firefighters are "giving their all" to contain large and complex bushfires before conditions worsen amid forecast high temperatures and dry winds. After a devastating end to last week - when two firefighters were killed and as many as 100 houses were destroyed in the state - firefighters have taken advantage of milder conditions to strengthen containment lines.

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How to read the plot

Origins and destinations are represented by the circle's segments. Each region/country is assigned a colour. Flows have the same colour as their origin and the width indicates their size. The direction of the flow is also shown by the gap between flow and country/region: small gap indicates origin; large gap indicates destination. Click on a segment to switch between country and region view.

Switch between time periods using Ctrl and number keys (1,2,3,4); reset the plot using Ctrl and r; zoom in/out with Ctrl and +/-

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Global international migration flows | Wittgenstein Centre

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Global Migration Data Sheet 2013: Unique estimates of migration flows between the top 50 sending and receiving countries.

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Documentary

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Camp Fire: One Year Later | Paradise Fire Documentary

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Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than it was in the 1990s.

The assessment comes from an international team of polar scientists who've reviewed all the satellite observations over a 26-year period.

They say Greenland's contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future.

It means an additional 7cm of ocean rise could now be expected by the end of the century from Greenland alone.

This threatens to put many millions more people in low-lying coastal regions at risk of flooding.

It's estimated roughly a billion live today less than 10m above current high-tide lines, including 250 million below 1m.

"Storms, if they happen against a baseline of higher seas - they will break flood defences," said Prof Andy Shepherd, of Leeds University.

"The simple formula is that around the planet, six million people are brought into a flooding situation for every centimetre of sea-level rise. So, when you hear about a centimetre rise, it does have impacts," he told BBC News.

The British scientist is the co-lead investigator for Imbie - the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise.

It's a consortium of 89 polar experts drawn from 50 international organisations.

The group has reanalysed the data from 11 satellite missions flown from 1992 to 2018. These spacecraft have taken repeat measurements of the ice sheet's changing thickness, flow and gravity. The Imbie team has combined their observations with the latest weather and climate models.

What emerges is the most comprehensive picture yet of how Greenland is reacting to the Arctic's rapid warming. This is a part of the globe that has seen a 0.75C temperature rise in just the past decade.

The Imbie assessment shows the island to have lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice to the ocean since the start of the study period. This mass is the equivalent of 10.6mm of sea-level rise. What is more, the team finds an acceleration in the data.

Whereas in the early 90s, the rate of loss was equivalent to about 1mm per decade, it is now running at roughly 7mm per decade.

Imbie team-member Dr Ruth Mottram is affiliated to the Danish Meteorological Institute.

She said: "Greenland is losing ice in two main ways - one is by surface melting and that water runs off into the ocean; and the other is by the calving of icebergs and then melting where the ice is in contact with the ocean. The long-term contribution from these two processes is roughly half and half."

In an average year now, Greenland sheds about 250 billion tonnes of ice. This year, however, has been exceptional for its warmth. In the coastal town of Ilulissat, not far from where the mighty Jakobshavn Glacier enters the ocean, temperatures reached into the high 20s Celsius. And even in the ice sheet interior, at its highest point, temperatures got to about zero.

"The ice loss this year was more like 370 billion tonnes," said Dr Mottram.

Back in 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the authoritative body that reconciles all climate science - gave a mid-range projection for global sea level rise of about 60cm by 2100. A mixture of ice melt and expansion of warming water.

But when Imbie published its companion review of Antarctica in 2018, it found the White Continent's contribution by 2100 was likely being underestimated by 10cm. Now, for Greenland, Imbie is saying the shortfall is 7cm. The IPCC will have to incorporate these updates when it releases its next major assessment report (AR6) of Earth's climate in a couple of years' time.

Prof René Forsberg, from the Technical University of Denmark, said the Imbie exercise underlined the importance of flying satellites, especially those that can observe the top of Greenland, higher than 83 degrees North. Only two of the present fleet can, and one of those spacecraft is operating beyond its design life.

"Most of the changes we've seen in Greenland have been in the west, south and east; and now it has slowly moved up to the north. So, yes, the next satellite in the European Union's Copernicus programme needs to go to higher latitudes, and this is being discussed by the EU and the European Space Agency," Prof Forsberg told BBC News.

The new satellite system - for the moment known as Cristal, but to be called a Sentinel if it flies - would be a radar altimeter to measure the changing shape of Greenland.

Imbie's Greenland analysis is published in the journal Nature. Its release has been timed to coincide with the annual COP climate convention taking place this year in Madrid, and with the American Geophysical Union meeting here in San Francisco, where leading Earth scientists have gathered.

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Climate change: Greenland ice melt 'is accelerating'

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Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than it was in the 1990s. The assessment comes from an international team of polar scientists who've reviewed all the satellite observations over a 26-year period. They say Greenland's contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future.

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2019 New Zealand - White Island eruption

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2019 New Zealand - White Island eruption

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Five people have been confirmed dead, 31 remain in hospital with injuries and eight are still missing after sudden volcanic eruptions on Whakaari/White Island off the east coast of New Zealand.

The island is a tourist destination and 47 people were on it when it erupted on Monday afternoon. Three of those rescued have now been discharged from hospital.

Volcanologists at GeoNet, which operates a geological hazard monitoring system, described the eruption as impulsive and short-lived, with an ash plume that rose to more than 3km above the vent.

On Tuesday morning the New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern praised the courage of the first responders and pilots who conducted an aerial survey. She confirmed that the flyovers have shown no signs of life. Police were assessing whether it was safe to return to the island for a recovery operation.

Volcanic hazards

White Island is one of several volcanoes in New Zealand that can produce sudden explosive eruptions at any time. In this case, magma is shallow, and the heat and gases affect surface and groundwater to form vigorous hydrothermal systems.

In these, water is trapped in pores of rocks in a super-heated state. Any external process, such as an earthquake, gas input from below, or even a change in the lake water level can tip this delicate balance and release the pressure on the hot and trapped water.

The resulting steam-driven eruption, also called a hydrothermal or phreatic eruption, can happen suddenly and with little to no warning. The expansion of water into steam is supersonic in speed and the liquid can expand to 1,700 times its original volume. This produces catastrophic impacts.

The expansion energy is enough to shatter solid rock, excavate craters and eject rock fragments and ash out to hundreds of metres away from the vent. We know of sites in New Zealand where material has been blasted out over 3km from the vent by such eruptions.

A satellite image shows White Island before the volcano erupted on Monday. Photograph: 2019 Maxar Technologies via AP

Potential for further eruptions

The hazards expected from steam-driven eruptions are violent ejections of hot blocks and ash, and the formation of "hurricane-like" currents of wet ash and coarse particles that radiate from the explosion vent. These can be deadly in terms of impact trauma, burns and respiratory injuries.

The eruptions are short-lived, but once one happens, there is a high chance for further, generally smaller ones as the system re-equilibrates. White Island is an acute location for such activity, but it is not the only location in New Zealand where this can happen.

Mount Ruapehu (crater lake), Mount Tongariro (Te Maari and Ketetahi) and geothermal areas of the central North Island all have the potential to cause such events. We know there have been more than 60 hydrothermal eruptions in the last 100 years in New Zealand. Some of these have caused loss of life.

No warning

Monitoring and warning for hydrothermal eruptions is a huge challenge. We don't normally see these eruptions coming, no matter how much we would like to. Many systems are already "primed" for such events, but the triggers are poorly understood.

The warning periods, once an event gets under way, are likely in the order of seconds to minutes. Our only hope for anticipating these events is to track potential vapour and liquid pressure in hydrothermal systems and to learn from their long-term behaviour when they are at a super-critical state. Unfortunately there are no simple rules that can be followed and each hydrothermal system is different.

In this age of technology and instrumental monitoring, it seems irrational that there should be little or no warning for such eruptions. The eruption is not caused by magma, but by steam, and this is much harder to track in our current monitoring systems.

We have seen several other fatal hydrothermal catastrophes unfold in other parts of the world, such as the 2014 eruption of Mount Ontake in Japan. New Zealand has been luckier than many other parts of the world, until now.

Shane Cronin is a volcanologist and professor of earth sciences at the University of Auckland.

This article was originally published in the Conversation

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What caused the volcanic eruption on New Zealand's White Island and why was there no warning?

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Five people have been confirmed dead, 31 remain in hospital with injuries and eight are still missing after sudden volcanic eruptions on Whakaari/White Island off the east coast of New Zealand. The island is a tourist destination and 47 people were on it when it erupted on Monday afternoon.

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Long-read but very useful

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I was in Venice when the acqua alta struck on 28 October 2018. I noted in my diary: "It happened today. The first big acqua alta of the year, with a siren at 09.17, followed by two steady tones. One tone is for 1.1 metres, two 1.2 metres, three 1.3 metres and four 1.4 metres or more. The tidal chart says the level should peak just after noon. At 12.30 I put on my green rubber boots. Stepping out along the canals, I found the water above my ankles and immediately had to re-learn how to walk. Walking at normal speed causes the water to splash over your boots and on to your legs. I slowed down, finding I also needed to watch out for little waves from the boats on the canal, which rode up right over the submerged pavement.

"Tourists used bin bags or fluorescent pink plastic booties over their shoes, walked barefoot or just got their shoes wet. Judging by the laughs and picture taking, high water looked fun, but not for the tourists who held heavy suitcases to their chests to keep them dry as they walked. One woman, who had given up, was dragging hers through the water. They looked really stressed. People carried small dogs and children, while a man hefted an old woman on to one of the raised board walkways set up for pedestrians. Many shops are open, some with thigh-high 'flood' barriers at the door, even as clerks mop up, pushing water out with wiper blades on sticks or setting up pumps to spew water back out on to the street. In a pizzeria, waiters shuffled through the water to serve customers.

"By the time I got to St Mark's Square, hip-booted policemen urged people on the walkways to move along and not to stop for selfies. The water in the square was too high for my boots, nearly knee-high, so it spilled over the top and poured in. Cold. The crowd in the square seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, even when it started to rain."

The next day, another acqua alta of 1.56 metres broke a record, flooding 75% of the city, giving Venetians a real scare, but now, a year on, that has paled in the face of a new record flood recorded on 12 November 2019, of 1.87 metres, the highest in more than 50 years, flooding over 85% of the city. Lesser record highs hit in the following days. The flood caused millions in damage, and two deaths - one man who tried to restart a water pump was killed by electrocution, and another was found dead in his home. The extended flooding has disheartened many among the city's depleted population of 53,000, with some now thinking that there is no future for Venice.

But the threat from flooding has been growing for some time. The problem first came to global attention on 4 November 1966, with the record 1.94 metre acqua alta flooding 96% of the city. The city was unprepared, and waist-high, stinking, muddy, oily water destroyed housing, shops, goods and art treasures on all the islands and lagoon shorelines.

The catastrophe sparked an international outcry that led the Italian government to pass a special law in 1973, officially recognising that the fate of Venice and the lagoon that surrounds it need to be considered as one entity. This legislation aimed to turn back the environmental devastation of the last century. It promised to restore the lagoon's physical and ecological integrity by rescuing the salt marshes, ending land reclamation and curbing pollution.

Faced with subsidence under Venice and the threat of bigger tides, the authorities planned gigantic dams to be constructed at the three openings where the lagoon meets the sea. In the decades since, another force has picked up that is much more threatening: sea-level rise. The Venice area is among the low-lying coasts of the world that, like the Netherlands, have been saved from the sea by human effort, via the use of dykes and pumping out water, and much of it is very sensitive to sea-level changes.

The average sea level rise predicted by the IPCC, the United Nations body for assessing climate change, is 0.43 metres by the end of the 21st century, and it could be as high as a metre or more. In Venice, higher water levels, adding to the effect of subsidence, are creating new, possibly unsustainable, stresses on the lagoon defences and the city. Already, higher water levels cause rising damp in Venice's ageing walls, crumbling the bricks and rusting the ties that hold up the buildings. The effect of higher water is also aggravated by lagoon erosion. While the tides took between 90 minutes and two hours to enter a century ago, now they enter in an hour. With the lagoon an average of 1.5 metres deep, twice what it was, the tides not only rise higher but also move faster and in greater volume on entering and leaving. The number of acque alte have also been rising since the last century: the number of floods over 1.1 metres have doubled since the 60s, due not only to subsidence and sea level rise, but also to increase in wind, waves and storms related to the climate crisis.

Several decades after the laws intended to protect Venice came into effect, much has been accomplished, but the hopes they raised have taken a battering in the face of inaction, resistance and inertia.

he 1966 flooding disaster that led to special laws for Venice launched decades of studies and planning and opened a multibillion-euro tap of funding that would go into housing refurbishment, art restoration and a two-part programme to save the lagoon. One part dealt with acqua alta up to 1.1 metres by bolstering the shock-absorbing effect of the salt marshes and sea fronts while building smaller barriers and localised adaptations in Venice and on other islands. The other part, for flooding over 1.1 metres, when the sirens sound, envisioned the massive dams dubbed Mose (pronounced Mosé), a strained acronym for M odulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico (Experimental Electromechanical Module).

The word "experimental" was included in the barriers' name in a nod to the law's requirement that the solution be "gradual, experimental and reversible". This was because solutions to managing the lagoon have historically been found with an element of trial and error. In reality, however, the massive, bright yellow, semi-submerged barriers under construction since 2003 are built on a foundation of millions of tonnes of concrete fixed with enormous piles driven into the sea floor, with no room for changing of minds. Mose also refers to the biblical Moses who held back the tides in Egypt, allowing the Jews to escape the pharaoh - which sets expectations rather high. So, the naming has not been a great boon, and already the flood gates have far surpassed their estimated cost, with more than €5.4bn spent.

Initially expected to be finished by 2011, decades after being conceived, plans were set back even further after a corruption scandal that broke in 2014 - one of the largest in Italian history - and are now only stuttering forward. The dams are still unusable, but now projected to be finished by the end of 2021. When the dams are ready, and a way to fund their €100m annual maintenance bill is found, they will then face their real test: whether they are up to the job - and serious doubts have been raised.

Many of the "soft" measures to control flooding up to 1.1 metres were completed decades ago, such as new sea walls on the littoral islands of Lido and Pellestrina and a "baby" Mose dam in the lagoon-side town of Chioggia. Housing has also been adapted. In 1966, many people lived in ground-floor accommodation, but that has since been banned. Now Mose gets all the attention and most of the money, often to the exclusion of other needs.

"The challenge," said Dario Berti, the lead mechanical plant engineer on Mose until 2017, "was this: to have a system that could intervene in the tides with minimal impact, but only those over a certain level, because those below should be allowed to come and go." The dams also needed to have a minimal impact on the scenery at the ports and on the lagoon.

Solutions like ones in Rotterdam (two movable storm surge barriers, each a half-moon shape almost as big as the Eiffel Tower) and the Thames barrier in London (10 gates, high as a five-storey building), both of them huge and visible, "would have too much environmental impact in this context," including destroying much of the natural dune reserves along the coastline, Berti said.

Venice's Mose project, selected after decades of study and political controversy from a number of alternatives, is unprecedented in design: separate dams at the Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia port openings, with a total of 78 rectangular flood gates over the three openings, each attached to the bottom by massive hinges. At the Lido opening, an island has also been constructed in the middle of the channel as part of the dam structures. When required, the hollow steel barriers - each as big as six or seven railway carriages laid side by side - are filled with air, causing them to float up to 45 degrees. Together they form a barrier designed to hold back the tide coming from the Adriatic. When the tide subsides, the air is let out and they sink back on to the bottom, out of sight and allowing the flow of water and naval traffic to resume.

Berti called the design "courageous and innovative ... There is no magic solution. This is a good compromise." In the wake of the latest floods, the government promised money to accelerate Mose and related efforts.

Good though it may be, Mose may not be good enough. Long mired in controversy, it was originally pushed through by politicians who wanted a quick solution.

ose is a costly, useless project with no guarantee that it will function well. It will require expensive management and maintenance, is unsustainable for national finances and will be difficult to control," said Venice University professor Antonio Rusconi, a civil engineer, formerly of the Magistrato alle Acque, a civic body that used to be in charge of maintaining the lagoon, and the National Hydrology Service. A long-time critic of Mose, he is not alone. After a very fraught, politicised design selection process, the environment ministry's own environmental impact commission had rejected the plan in 1988.

The major challenge for the dams is that acqua alta is never flat. When there is wind - and there is always wind - the surface is high here and low there, and it can even push water out of one port opening and into another, said Rusconi. "The wind crams the water into certain places, raising it up by as much as 40cm. Controlling this system will involve fights and legal issues. It will be impossible to manage, not just technically. This is where things will get unclear and unclean, because this is a political choice - and we know that these choices get made because the big companies are paying." The waves will cause the raised barriers to flap, creating "multi-directional stress" that will cut the lifespan of the hinges, he said, while every storm will send sand, mud and debris into the wide grooves that cradle the barriers under the water, preventing them from re-closing.

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Tourists in Venice during the record acqua alta of November 2019. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images

The motive for building them under the water was to avoid sullying the landscape. This was a mistake, Rusconi said, "because on the surface there will also be a huge pontoon boat for maintenance, which is uglier even than the yellow gates". He believes that something visible but more easily managed, as in London or Rotterdam, would have been better.

Sea level rise will make it necessary to close the barriers ever more often, eventually impeding shipping traffic and causing pollution, as the water cannot be refreshed by the tides. There are also concerns about how the barriers will deal with rain. In 1966, water falling on the lagoon and draining from the land caused the water level in the lagoon to resurge. The wind could cause a sloshing-bathtub effect, where the water shifts uncontrollably from one part of the lagoon to another, interfering with floodgate management. "In short," Rusconi said, "the system is too complex. Mose might work for small storms, lasting two or three hours, but if a very strong one comes, like 1966, it will fail. But the small storms were not the objective - the big ones were."

So why did the whole project go ahead?

"Incredibly, because the ministries were corrupt," said Rusconi. "Their judgments were bought. In many cases, the corruption was not a matter of money. It also happens by means of promotions, career advancement, illegitimate awards ... favours, jobs for the offspring of ministry officials who were hired by Consorzio Venezia Nuova. In Italy we call it parentopoli - nepotism."

The scandal broke on a warm June morning in 2014, with 36 arrests of politicians, officials, magistrates, businessmen, professionals and technicians linked to Consorzio Venezia Nuova, the company responsible for Mose, who had, since 2005, created a slush fund of €25m for bribes to politicians and magistrates. The minister of public works in Rome, the then-mayor of Venice, the governor of the Veneto region and state engineers who should have been checking on the work were among those investigated for corruption, fiscal fraud and illegal financing of political parties.

"The state's mechanisms of control over the management of the money were weak, and this allowed the robbery of state funds," said public prosecutor Paola Tonini, who ordered the crackdown. But why in this case - a massive state construction project - was such laxness possible? She blamed the set-up of the Consorzio Venezia Nuova as a monopoly with nebulous management controls and lack of competitive bidding for jobs, adding: "Stealing from the state was probably part of the plan from the beginning." (The Consorzio is now being run by a new administration under anti-corruption rules.)

he need for the dam reflects the historical relationship between Venice and the lagoon. For centuries the Venetian republic husbanded its natural resources, keeping the lagoon from filling in through sedimentation and protecting its water quality. That care fell away in the 19th and especially the 20th centuries, when land reclamation gobbled up a third of the lagoon - most of it rare natural habitat - in order to build an industrial port. Petrochemical plants at Marghera on the mainland opposite Venice caused the worst damage and health hazards, dumping millions of tonnes of toxic waste, including heavy metals and dioxins, into the lagoon for decades. Most of it remains in the mud under the surface. By the 1990s, market forces had killed off these toxic industries, leaving an industrial wasteland, mostly contained by 8km of metal piles driven in around the industrial area to prevent further poisoning.

In addition, modern-day industrial and agricultural runoff from the river basin to the north adds to lagoon pollution. Since the 1970s, better treatment facilities and a requirement for new buildings in Venice to install local septic tanks has improved water quality markedly, but the city still lacks a sewer system. So half of the buildings pour human waste, detergents and household chemicals directly into the canals.

However, the most devastating damage is hidden. To make way for bigger ships, the openings to the sea separating the littoral islands of Lido and Pellestrina were deepened and a channel called the Canale dei Petroli was dredged in 1960-69 to a depth of 17 metres. Enlarging the openings and dredging the new channel caused massive surges of tidal water that are washing away the silty lagoon bottom. In the southern lagoon, they have gouged out an ever-widening crater and destroyed natural channels that feed the lagoon ecosystem. This, with the added erosion from ships and illegal clam fishing, is fundamentally altering the lagoon, diminishing its prized wetlands and converting the lagoon into a sterile branch of the Adriatic Sea.

The key actor in the fate of the lagoon - and of Venice - is its port, visited by thousands of container ships and tankers, along with some 700 cruise ships every year.

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A cruise ship towering over a canal in Venice, June 2019. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images

As the industrial role of the port has diminished, it has grown into a commercial hub, riding a wave of Chinese exports, of everything from toys to motorbikes. At the same time, the old Stazione Marittima at the eastern end of historic Venice, once the commercial port, has been given over to cruise-ship tourism.

Unlike commercial shipping, cruise ships steam directly through the city's Giudecca canal instead of bypassing historic Venice on the Canale dei Petroli. These giants, whose scale makes Venice look like a Lego-built mini-city, not only cause erosion and pollution, but risk accidents by passing close to the city as they move through the Giudecca canal and past St Mark's Square. Each one, on average 10 storeys high, is a floating resort city, with casinos, shopping centres, restaurants, nightclubs, cinemas, gyms, theatres and ice-skating rinks.

Tending to arrive on the busiest weekends, each liner can pour as many as 5,000 passengers into Venice, and sometimes there are six or seven in port at once. Venice is already straining under the weight of 30 million tourists a year. The ships generate terrible air pollution, and most of them burn "bunker fuel", which has up to 2,000 times more sulphur content than diesel. On entering and exiting, they make waves that erode seawalls and foundations. Their propellers stir up and wash away lagoon sediments, turning the water brown.

After the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan coast in January 2012, killing 32 people, Italy passed a law forbidding ships to come closer than two miles from the coast, except where there was no alternative - so it did not apply to Venice. The government banned ships of more than 40,000 tonnes from the Giudecca canal, but has insisted, for economic reasons, that passage for such boats should continue until other arrangements can be made. The exception has prompted international protest, regular demonstrations in the city and expressions of concern from Unesco over the risk to Venice, which is a World Heritage Site. When a 275-metre cruise ship, the MCS Opera, collided with a dock and tourist boat after losing control in the Giudecca canal in June, attention was refocused on the need to deal with cruise ship routes.

ince the mid 1990s, cruise ship tourism has been growing fast; shipyards around the world have an estimated 124 new ships that can carry more than 5,000 passengers each coming onstream in the next few years. Cruise ship passenger numbers worldwide have risen from 11 million a year in 2009 to 28.5 million in 2018. The industry insists that it provides jobs, and that air pollution can be reduced, and denies that erosion from its ships damages the lagoon. Even so, the ships have become the most visible symbol of how tourism is eating away the social and cultural fabric of the city. And the prospect of sea-level rise has led to the reluctant realisation that, in coming decades, the lagoon may have to be closed to protect Venice.

The port authorities, "have not understood that, within 10 or 20 years, their internal port will be unusable," said a lagoon hydrologist from Padua University, Luigi D'Alpaos. "Because either you choose to let ships enter the port, or you choose to defend Venice from acqua alta. This is the great contradiction Venice has always lived with. If I want to save the Venice lagoon, I cannot, at the same time, protect the activity of the port, because the solutions required for these two problems are absolutely opposite."

D'Alpaos calculates that with as little as a 30cm rise in sea level, the Mose flood gates would have to close for 70 hours a month, and at 50cm the rate of closures would hit 166 hours a month. This would cause significant obstruction to shipping and cruise vessels. It would also prevent the twice-daily tides from cleansing the lagoon, as they do at present. Mose's usefulness could be diminished by as early as 2040 - and it has not even been completed yet. But intermittent closure would not necessarily mean the end of the port: it could be moved outside the lagoon.

The port authorities have looked at other ways to avoid such disruption. They continue dredging the Canale dei Petroli to keep the routes open for ships, probably adding to lagoon erosion. They have backed a plan for cruise ships to use a long detour to reach the maritime terminal. The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, among others, supported this option after the 2019 cruise ship collision.

Neither plan addresses the issue of sea-level rise, and both face vociferous opposition because they would require dredging of canals, accelerating erosion of the lagoon and spreading pollution. The mud around the Vittorio Emanuele canal, along the road and rail bridges to Venice, is particularly contaminated. "This mud absolutely must not be moved, because if it is, it will stir up the poisons," said lagoon biologist Lorenzo Bonometto. "This is why I think the idea of dredging Vittorio Emanuele is insane and reckless." Apart from that, re-digging the canal would prevent tidal diffusion, starving the area of oxygen, he said. The water there "would degenerate in the summer heat, giving the entrance route to Venice a horrible stink - not to mention that it would damage the ecology".

A new port just outside the lagoon, on or near the coast with the Adriatic Sea, could serve either cruise ships, or commercial shipping, or both. It might emulate the Maasvlakte 2 project outside Rotterdam on the North Sea, or the offshore river delta container port in Shanghai. Supporters believe it could resolve both the cruise ship issue and the future challenges of sea level rise, since a port outside the lagoon could eliminate the need for new dredging, and stop cruise ships traversing Venice, while continuing the port's economic functions.

One idea, which has support from environmental groups and the former transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, is to set up a port outside the lagoon, solely for large cruise ships. Passengers would use environmentally friendly electric ferries to get from the vessels to Venice. "This means the port workers will continue to do what they do now at the maritime terminal," said environmental advocate Armando Danella - ie, the abandonment of the old port would not need to result in job losses.

But the idea for an cruise ship port outside the city faces opposition from the beach communities nearby, especially Cavallino-Treporti, which sits on a spit of land north of the Lido opening, an area popular with tourists. The main criticisms concern logistics. Venice is a transit port, not a get-off-look-around-get-back-on port. Cruise passengers tend to begin or end journeys in Venice, travelling onward by train, plane or car. This could cause mind-boggling local transport issues, as several cruise ships arrive a day, each carrying 4,000 or more people and their luggage, all needing to be transferred to and from Venice and the airport. The resultant extra traffic could cause major congestion on the single road that runs along the peninsula.

As the sea rises, these problems - along with the huge costs that building new ports and closing the lagoon would involve - await serious study.

Lidia Fersuoch, president of the Venice branch of Italia Nostra, the oldest and largest environmental group in Italy, believes the issue will be forced by sea-level rise. When I met her, she was frustrated with the political process and "totally pessimistic" about saving the lagoon and Venice in the short term. She has, however, "a little seed of optimism, and my optimism is a response to global warming," she said. "I hope that the sea-level rises will be such that the lagoon will finally be closed. It's absurd to say this, but nothing else will achieve useful action."

Global warming is already out of control, Fersuoch added, which means that "in 50, or even 20 years, the lagoon will have to stay shut, and then how will it function? We need to think about that, about how to create the system, the engineering, ways to activate the tides artificially. It won't be easy," she said, adding that these questions should take precedence over Mose, "but I see no one talking about them." Perhaps the most recent floods will change that.
This article is based on Neal E Robbins's forthcoming book Venice, Revisited
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Deep trouble: can Venice hold back the tide?

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I was in Venice when the acqua alta struck on 28 October 2018. I noted in my diary: "It happened today. The first big acqua alta of the year, with a siren at 09.17, followed by two steady tones. One tone is for 1.1 metres, two 1.2 metres, three 1.3 metres and four 1.4 metres or more.

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Very visual way to understand air pollution in cities

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Outdoor particulate pollution was responsible for an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide in 2015, with a majority concentrated in east and south Asia. Millions more fell ill from breathing dirty air.

This fine pollution mainly comes from burning things: Coal in power plants, gasoline in cars, chemicals in industrial processes, or woody materials and whatever else ignites during wildfires. The particles are too small for the eye to see - each about 35 times smaller than a grain of fine beach sand - but in high concentrations they cast a haze in the sky. And, when breathed in, they wreak havoc on human health.

PM2.5 can evade our bodies' defenses, penetrating deep into the lungs and even entering the bloodstream. It has been shown to exacerbate asthma and other lung disorders, and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. This microscopic pollution, named because each particle is smaller than 2.5 micrometers across, has also been linked to developmental problems in children and cognitive impairment in the elderly, as well as premature labor and low birth weights.

Under high levels of particulate pollution, "you can't function, you can't thrive," said Alexandra Karambelas, an environmental analyst and research scientist affiliated with Columbia University. "Having access to clean air is kind of a basic human right."

A Year of Fine Particulate Pollution

Source: Forecasts for daily average particulate matter (PM 2.5) concentration in micrograms per cubic meter are from the ECMWF Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

Developing and newly industrialized regions experience some of the worst particulate pollution today. But even high-income, developed economies, which have made big strides in reducing such pollution, continue to struggle with the quality of their air.

In the United States, which has some of the cleanest air in the world, fine particulate matter still contributed to 88,000 premature deaths in 2015 - making this pollution more deadly than both diabetes and the flu. And pollution in America has worsened since 2016, reversing years of decline.

Before governments can decide how best to tackle unhealthy air, Dr. Karambelas said, they need to better understand the causes of pollution. "Is it lax standards? No enforcement of the standards?" she asked. "Is something happening regionally that plays a large role?"

The city-level data shown here focuses on average particulate pollution, allowing you to compare air quality across the world. But the amount of pollution you breathe also varies within a city, from neighborhood to neighborhood and block to block.

And pollution does not affect all groups equally.

A recent study found that in the United States, people of color tend to breathe dirtier air than white Americans, despite contributing far less to overall pollution. Around the world, the poorest suffer most from unhealthy air.

Wildfires Increase Pollution in California and the Western U.S.

Data reflects regional estimates by Berkeley Earth based on observations at ground-level monitoring stations.

Last year's deadly Camp Fire engulfed Paradise, Calif., in the Sierra Nevada foothills, causing 85 deaths and destroying nearly 19,000 buildings. Smoke from the fire blanketed much of northern California for nearly two weeks, prompting health warnings.

In San Francisco, nearly 200 miles south of Paradise, fine particulate pollution reached nearly 200 micrograms per cubic meter at the worst hour, according to Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research group that aggregates data from air-quality monitoring sites. Average daily air quality hovered between "unhealthy" and "very unhealthy" for 11 days. Schools were closed and cable car service suspended; protective face masks and air filters sold out at local stores.

Further inland, Sacramento temporarily earned the unwelcome title of most polluted city in the world.

Such large, high-pollution fires have become more common across the West in recent years, said Daniel Jaffe, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.

"2018 had some of the worst ever air quality in Seattle, where I live," he said. That year, smoke from fires in both eastern Washington and north of the border in British Columbia clouded the city's skies for more than a week.

Climate change, and the hot, dry conditions it creates, has led to more catastrophic Western fires and, with them, more air pollution. But fire hazards are also increasing because of greater development in areas abutting wildlands, the over-suppression of natural wildfires, and aging electrical infrastructure ( broken power lines were identified as the cause of California's deadly Camp Fire).

Average air pollution in both Seattle and the Bay Area remains relatively low outside of large fire events, but even periodic exposure to such high levels of PM2.5 pollution can have lasting health consequences.

Air Quality: A Public Health Emergency in Northern India

Data reflects regional estimates by Berkeley Earth based on observations at ground-level monitoring stations.

Last month, particulate pollution soared to apocalyptic highs in New Delhi, a city that struggles with air quality throughout the year. On the most polluted day, PM2.5 readings pushed past the limit of "hazardous" air and remained dangerously high over the following weeks.

Officials declared a public health emergency, shutting down schools and distributing millions of protective face masks to residents. Hundreds of flights into and out of the city were canceled or delayed because of low visibility.

In an effort to clear the hazy skies, the government temporarily halted all construction projects and restricted the number of cars on the road, requiring vehicles with odd- and even-numbered license plates to drive on alternate days. But critics said those measures only scratched the surface of the broader air quality crisis.

The early winter surge in air pollution has become " depressingly predictable " over the past decade, said Joshua Apte, an air quality scientist and assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Starting in late October and early November, smoke from upwind agricultural burning combines with Delhi's year-round urban pollution - a toxic mix of vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions and construction dust - to create an eye-watering smog. Fireworks from Diwali celebrations worsen the city's hazardous air.

At the same time, cold winter air coming down the Himalayan Mountains traps pollution near the surface, creating a belt of haze that can be seen from space. Cities across Northern India, from nearby Agra all the way east to Kolkata, see similar seasonal patterns of pollution.

"Extremes catch the headlines and everyone talks about it," Dr. Apte said. "But levels of pollution across the region are very high on a normal winter day. Even when the sky appears to be blue in Delhi, pollution concentrations often exceed what we know to be healthy."

Last week, India's Supreme Court criticized state governments for repeatedly failing to resolve the regional air pollution crisis and for ignoring the court's previous orders to limit agricultural burning.

Calling clean air and water a constitutional right, the court said the local governments should pay their citizens compensation if they fail to clean up the environment and gave authorities six weeks to respond. "Human life and health have been put in danger," the court wrote in its order.

China's 'War Against Air Pollution'

Data reflects regional estimates by Berkeley Earth based on observations at ground-level monitoring stations. The data is quality-controlled, but some anomalies or errors may persist.

Beijing was once synonymous with dirty air. But in 2014, the government announced a "war against pollution," pledging to clean up the dangerous haze hanging over many of China's major cities.

"We will resolutely declare war against pollution as we declared war against poverty," Premier Li Keqiang announced in front of 3,000 delegates at the National People's Congress in an address broadcast on state television.

The country set strict limits on burning coal and implemented new emissions standards for power plants and heavy industry. It also banned the construction of new coal plants surrounding Beijing and other highly polluted areas and shut down some of the oldest, most polluting plants.

Beijing, Shanghai and other large cities restricted the number of high-polluting vehicles on their roads and heavily subsidized electric buses.

Today, air quality in Beijing has improved, though skies remain far from clear. Average daily particulate pollution hovers in the "moderate" to "unhealthy" range. The maximum hourly reading reached nearly 250 micrograms per cubic meter last November. But that's vastly lower than the levels of pollution that were once common in the city. In 2013, Beijing recorded concentrations from 700 to 900 of PM2.5, not unlike the air in New Delhi last month.

In 2016, a report from the environmental group Greenpeace warned that pollution controls enacted in eastern China were pushing investment in polluting industries to the west, making the air there more dangerous. Western China is also prone to large seasonal sandstorms from April through June, which contribute to unhealthy air.

Last year, two cities in the west - Hotan and Kashgar, in Xinjiang province - still ranked among the most polluted in the world.

View an enhanced version of this article in augmented reality by using the NYTimes app on newer iPhones and iPads. Frame this QR tag using your camera app for a link to this article.

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See How the World's Most Polluted Air Compares With Your City's (Published 2019)

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Outdoor particulate pollution was responsible for an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide in 2015, with a majority concentrated in east and south Asia. Millions more fell ill from breathing dirty air. This fine pollution mainly comes from burning things: Coal in power plants, gasoline in cars, chemicals in industrial processes, or woody materials and whatever else ignites during wildfires.

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Available everywhere (except North Korea and Cuba)

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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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The blame for three decades of stagnant wages in most advanced countries is often laid at the doorstep of globalization, particularly competition from low-wage developing exporters. Globalization is clearly contributing to increased integration of labor markets and closing the wage gap between workers in advanced and developing economies, especially through the spread of technology. It also plays a part in increasing domestic income inequality. But erecting protectionist policies to stanch the forces of globalization is not the best response. Policymakers must instead focus on what can be done to help workers adjust to a changing world.

The Imperfect Integration of Labor Markets

We are very far from a global labor market, as evidenced by a wide disparity in wages. One study finds that the median wage for jobs in advanced countries is two and a half times the wage level for jobs with similar skill levels in the most advanced developing countries, and five times the level in low-income countries. In 2008, a Chinese manufacturing worker earned about one-twentieth the wage level of a U.S. manufacturing worker; a Mexican, one-sixth.

That gap, however, is narrowing in part due to globalization. From 1999 to 2009 (the year of the worst global recession since the 1930s), average real wages rose by about 0.5 percent per year in advanced countries, compared to about 1.5 percent in Africa and Latin America, and almost 8 percent in developing Asia.

Globalization is far from being the whole story behind the narrowing gaps. If wage convergence were principally the result of an integrating global labor market, one would see wages in Africa, the poorest region, rise much faster than the others. But differences in domestic factors, such as the business climate, governance, and education, also play a vital role in determining wage growth.

Global Forces Behind Wage Convergence

Migration, trade, foreign investment, and the spread of technology-all channels of globalization-work to induce wage convergence in interconnected and mutually reinforcing ways.

Increased migration probably plays only a small role in wage convergence. The stock of emigrants from developing countries is just 2 percent of their population, so emigration has little role in raising wages by limiting the growth in labor supply in developing countries. Most studies have found that immigration also has had only modest long-term effects on wages in advanced countries. There are many potential reasons for this: Immigrants typically only account for 10-15 percent of the labor force. Migrants and native workers are imperfect substitutes and may even complement each other, as migrants increase aggregate demand for the services of native workers. And migrants reduce the price of services consumed by native workers.

Trade can promote wage convergence even when workers do not move. Developing countries with abundant labor export goods intensive in labor, so trade induces their wages to rise relative to rich countries, which have less labor and plenty of capital. The more-than-quadrupling of developing countries' manufactures exports relative to their GDP from 1985 to 2008 almost certainly contributed to wage convergence, especially in middle-income countries that have typically been the most successful exporters. Numerous studies of the direct impact of trade on wages in advanced countries conclude that the depressing effect is small.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in capital-scarce developing countries can raise the productivity of workers, and thus their wages, by transferring management skills, capital, and technology, and in the process sometimes outsourcing jobs from advanced countries. FDI inflows to developing countries rose from 0.6 percent of their GDP in 1980 to 3.5 percent in 2008. However, over the past decade, total net capital flows (including official and private portfolio flows) equal to 2.6 percent of developing countries' GDP actually have gone from developing to advanced countries, largely in the form of Treasury bill purchases. This type of investment did not generate jobs directly in advanced countries, but may have reduced the need for domestic borrowing that would have crowded out domestic investors. On balance, it is therefore not clear whether capital flows to and from developing countries have played a large role in promoting wage convergence, though capital flows taking the form of FDI almost certainly have.

Various studies have shown that skill-biased technological change is a major driver in reducing the demand for unskilled workers. At the same time, the transfer of all types of technology through FDI, international trade (imports of machines and learning from competitors and sophisticated customers), and migration (via contacts with diasporas and returning migrants) from advanced to developing countries provides an enormously important opportunity for raising productivity and thus wages in the latter. Moreover, increased competition from low-wage countries tends to spur labor-saving technology in advanced countries.

However, despite the deepening of these channels, remaining barriers to trade and investment, inefficiencies in transport and communications, and structural limitations to the absorption of technology in developing countries, such as insufficient levels of education and business climates that discourage ventures that could adopt technologies, continue to impede the spread of technology. Moreover, in many poor countries, even relatively old technologies are only available in selected locales and to elites, or used only by a few firms. Thus much of the technology adoption that contributes to wage convergence is actually about bringing backward regions, inefficient firms, and disadvantaged groups up to the level of the more advanced in the same country.

Globalization of the Labor Market and Income Distribution

These forces of globalization have been associated with both rising living standards and a deterioration in income distribution in advanced countries: Low-skilled wages have remained flat or even declined, while high-skilled wages have increased sharply. Labor income fell as a share of GDP by 3.5 percentage points from 1993 to 2009. And Gini coefficients, which provide an aggregate measure of income inequality, rose from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s in all G-7 countries except France.

Inequality also has increased in many developing countries. According to the International Labor Organization, of the 28 developing countries for which data are available, 21 experienced increased income inequality from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s. As in advanced countries, openness to trade and foreign investment have increased the relative return to skilled labor and capital, while reducing the relative return to unskilled labor.

Indeed, some analyses find that trade and financial liberalization episodes, or openness in general, have contributed to worsening income inequality, at least in the middle-income countries. The link between openness and inequality depends in part on the policies adopted, as well as the structure of the economy and the initial income distribution.

How Should Policymakers Respond?

Developing countries' weak social safety nets and relatively unequal income distributions make them very sensitive to the impact on the losers from globalization. However, their rapid growth and good fiscal positions mean that over time they should be able to build the safety nets available to workers in advanced countries. In designing safety nets, policymakers in developing countries should try to protect workers if unemployed or injured, but would be ill-advised to erect the barriers to firing common in many advanced countries that reduce the overall demand for labor in formal (that is, decent) employment.

Despite their wealth, the labor challenge facing advanced countries, still mired in high unemployment in the wake of the crisis, is more daunting. Identifying the correct policy response is made more arduous by the difficulty of attributing the worsening of income distribution with any precision to trade, technology, demography (increased female participation in the labor force, for example), or other factors such as increasing returns to education.

What is certain is that the answer cannot be to stop the spread of technology or trade. With developing countries likely to be home to the vast majority of the global middle class -people with significant disposable income-in the coming decades, the opportunities available to advanced countries from international trade and technological innovation are likely to greatly increase. At the same time, competition in technology-intensive sectors as developing countries learn will intensify, forcing the pace of innovation to increase even more.

The U.S. tax code could be made more progressive by increasing rates for the highest-income taxpayers, eliminating deductions that favor higher-income groups, reducing social security taxes that weigh most heavily on wage earners, and eliminating unproductive tax loopholes that favor corporations.

But taxes are only part of the problem. Poverty has also been driven by an erosion of the quality of public goods. Most importantly, public education in many advanced countries, beginning with the United States, no longer offers the same opportunities for advancement that it did in the first half of the twentieth century. Increased investment in education and training is all the more important with rapid technological progress and shifts in the demand for workers with different skill levels.

Globalized markets may be changing too quickly to provide the security enjoyed by manufacturing workers in the 1950s. Setting up trade barriers in an attempt to slow the pace of change is not an appropriate response, as they would in effect throw out the baby (efficiency) with the bathwater (inequality). But a much better job can be done to soften the blow for those who are adversely affected and help workers adjust to the demands of a rapidly changing global economy.

Uri Dadush is the director of Carnegie's International Economics Program. William Shaw is a visiting scholar in Carnegie's International Economics Program. This note is based on a longer article by the authors "Is the Labor Market Global?" which appeared in Current History in January 2012.

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Globalization, Labor Markets, and Inequality

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The blame for three decades of stagnant wages in most advanced countries is often laid at the doorstep of globalization, particularly competition from low-wage developing exporters. Globalization is clearly contributing to increased integration of labor markets and closing the wage gap between workers in advanced and developing economies, especially through the spread of technology.

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Could be used for Euro 2020 at Wembley

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To what extent and how do the media - press, broadcasting or social - influence our perceptions of places and brands, and as such their image and reputation? With what consequences?

Learn about:

Importance of media representations;

Why media representations are especially relevant for remote places;

Amount and nature of media coverage of places;

How news coverage influences reputation;

Why the 'media reputation' of places is hard to control.

Media representations of places - why care?

Media representations play a crucial role in the place image context. Perceptions of places, including countries or tourist destinations, are influenced by the ways in which they are represented by the media (Boisen et al., 2011).

While images are constructed and communicated through multiple channels, including direct experience, word-of-mouth and audio-visual media (Hudson & Brent-Ritchie, 2006), the mass media are one of the main means by which information is disseminated (Anholt, 2010).

The media play "a major part in informing consumers' images of destinations...either directly in terms of being read, heard or watched, or indirectly through the advice given by friends, relatives and other sources." (Hall, 2002, pp. 458-459)

Media representations especially crucial for distant places

Remote places in particular depend on media coverage to become known to the outside world (Avraham, 2000; Avraham & Ketter, 2008; Choi, Lehto, & Morrison, 2007; Dinnie, 2008; Kotler & Gertner, 2011).

What is more, the media's portrayal of distant places is mostly accepted as their "true" nature by those not living there (Adoni & Mane, 1984; Avraham, 2000; Avraham & Ketter, 2008; Burgess & Gold, 1985; Gold, 1980; Pocock & Hudson, 1978; Relph, 1976).

In this regard, the media also function as a primary source for stereotypes and images associated with distant places (Dahlgren & Chakrapani, 1982; Gold, 1994). Media reporting can also turn remotely located places into areas of possible concern for people living thousands of kilometers away (Chouliaraki, 2006; Cottle, 2009a, 2009b).

Yet, the ability of places to become known through the media is limited by the tendency of the media in many countries to exclude peripheral regions (Avraham, 2003; Lahav & Avraham, 2008).

Amount and nature of media coverage of places

Regarding the amount and nature of media coverage of places, Avraham and Ketter (2008, p. 30; see also Avraham, 2000) - drawing on Manheim and Albritton (1984) - have proposed that places either:

1. receive much negative coverage,

2. are not covered by the media except in a negative context, usually related to crime, social problems, natural disasters, etc.,

3. receive much positive coverage, such as cultural events, tourist activity, or investments, or

4. are largely ignored by the media but when noticed are covered in a primarily positive light.

How news coverage influences reputation

Carroll and McCombs (2003) offer some guiding principles that help understand the influence of news coverage on (corporate) reputation:

1. the greater the amount of coverage, the greater public awareness,

2. attributes emphasized in media coverage become attributes the public uses to define a firm; and

3. the valence of news coverage, positive or negative, is reflected in corresponding public perceptions about those attributes.

Although those principles were developed with business organizations in mind, they can be considered equally valid for understanding the significance of media reputation for place or national brands. In both situations, brand managers are, at the best, outsiders listening in, if not completely disconnected from such conversations (Humlen, 2012).

Media reputation: difficult to control

Controlling media-constructed reputation of a place is difficult, if not impossible (Murphy, 2010). The reputation an organisation or place enjoys in the media develops over time through a complex social process (Deephouse, 2000, p. 1098); it is constantly challenged and evolving (Murphy, 2010).

Apart from media representations of places being subject to sociopolitical influences beyond the immediate control of places, they also cannot entirely control editorial decisions or other news making characteristics (Avraham & Ketter, 2008).

This is not to say that a place's reputation (coverage) in the media shouldn't be closely monitored. Quite the contrary:

Isolated negatives in media coverage should not be dismissed as irrelevant, as "these dissonances may signal nascent patterns that, when they become obvious, may have assumed an immovable logic of their own" (Murphy, 2010, p. 233).

References

Adoni, H., & Mane, S. (1984). Media and the social construction of reality: Toward an integration of theory and research. Communication Research, 11(3), 323-340. doi: 10.1177/009365084011003001

Anholt, S. (2010). Places: Identity, image and reputation. Houndsmills, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.

Avraham, E. (2000). Cities and their news media images. Cities, 17(5), 363-370. doi: 10.1016/S0264-2751(00)00032-9

Avraham, E. (2003). Behind media marginality: Coverage of social groups and places in the Israeli press. Langham, MD: Lexington Books.

Avraham, E., & Ketter, E. (2008). Media strategies for marketing places in crisis: Improving the image of cities, countries and tourist destinations. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Inc.

Boisen, M., Terlouw, K., & Bouke, v.G. (2011). The selective nature of place branding and the layering of spatial identities. Journal of Place Management and Development, 4(2), 135-147. doi: 10.1108/17538331111153151

Burgess, J., & Gold, J.R. (Eds.). (1985). Geography, the media and popular culture. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.

Carroll, C.E., & McCombs, M. (2003). Agenda-setting effects of business news on the public's images and opinions about major corporations. Corporate Reputation Review, 6(1), 36-46. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.crr.1540188

Choi, S., Lehto, X.Y., & Morrison, A.M. (2007). Destination image representation on the web: Content analysis of Macau travel related websites. Tourism Management, 28(1), 118-129. doi: doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2006.03.002

Chouliaraki, L. (2006). The spectatorship of suffering. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Cottle, S. (2009). Global crises in the news: Staging news wars, disasters, and climate change. International Journal of Communication, 3, 494-516.

Cottle, S. (2009). Global crisis reporting: Journalism in the global age. Maidenhead, United Kingdom: Open University Press.

Dahlgren, P., & Chakrapani, S. (1982). The third world on T.V. news: Western way of seeing the 'other'. In W. Adams (Ed.), Television coverage of international affairs (pp. 45-62). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Deephouse, D.L. (2000). Media reputation as a strategic resource: An integration of mass communication and resource-based theories. Journal of Management, 26(6), 1091-1112.

Dinnie, K. (2008). Nation branding: Concepts, issues, practice. Oxford, United Kingdom: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Gilpin, D. (2010). Organizational image construction in a fragmented online media environment. Journal of Public Relations Research, 22(3), 265-287. doi: 10.1080/10627261003614393

Gold, J.R. (1980). An introduction to behavioral geography. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Gold, J.R. (1994). Locating the message: Place promotion as image communication. In J.R. Gold & S.V. Ward (Eds.), Place promotion: The use of publicity and marketing to sell towns and regions (pp. 19-38). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hall, C.M. (2002). Travel safety, terrorism and the media: The significance of the issue-attention-cycle. Current Issues in Tourism, 5(5), 458-466. doi: 10.1080/13683500208667935

Hudson, S., & Brent-Ritchie, J.R. (2006). Promoting destinations via film tourism: An empirical identification of supporting marketing initiatives. Journal of Travel Research, 44(4), 387-396. doi: 10.1177/0047287506286720

Humlen, A. (2012). Why 'humanizing' brands begins with a state of mind. Emotional Branding Alliance Blog. Retrieved March 19th, 2012, from http://www.socialvoicebranding.com/why-humanizing-brands-begins-with-a-state-of-mind/

Kotler, P., & Gertner, D. (2011). A place marketing and place branding perspective revisited. In N. Morgan, A. Pritchard & R. Pride (Eds.), Destination brands: Managing place reputation (3rd ed., pp. 33-54). Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Lahav, T., & Avraham, E. (2008). Public relations for peripheral places and their national media coverage patterns: The Israeli case. Public Relations Review, 34(3), 230-236. doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2008.05.002

Manheim, J.B., & Albritton, R.B. (1984). Changing national images: International public relations and media agenda setting. The American Political Science Review, 78(3), 641-657.

Masters, E. (2010). Brand Aotearoa? Deep origin marketing of functional foods and other natural products of New Zealand origin. (MBA Master thesis), University of Liverpool. Link to Pdf file

Murphy, P. (2010). The intractability of reputation: Media coverage as a complex system in the case of Martha Stewart. Journal of Public Relations Research, 22(2), 209-237. doi: 10.1080/10627261003601648

Pocock, D., & Hudson, R. (1978). Images of the urban environment. London, UK: Macmillan.

Relph, E. (1976). Place and placelessness. London, UK: Pion.
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Media Representations of Places: Definition, Concepts, Theory | TPBO

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To what extent and how do the media - press, broadcasting or social - influence our perceptions of places and brands, and as such their image and reputation ? With what consequences? Importance of media representations; Why media representations are especially relevant for remote places; Amount and nature of media coverage of places; How news coverage influences reputation; Why the 'media reputation' of places is hard to control.

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Comparative study

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Holderness comparative study

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With model to base theory on

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Forest fires in Congo Rainforest in 2019

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Could trees solve Wales' and the UK's CO2 problem?

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Politicians often talk about planting more trees.

Experts say they are crucial in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

They could help the UK and Welsh Governments meet targets of cutting greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050.

In 2019 it was estimated 15% of Wales was covered with trees and it is thought there are more than three billion in the UK.

But in May the Committee for Climate Change advisory group warned UK-wide and devolved policies needed to be "ramped up significantly" to achieve their targets.

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Trees: The answer to solving the UK's CO2 problem?

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Politicians often talk about planting more trees. Experts say they are crucial in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They could help the UK and Welsh Governments meet targets of cutting greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050.

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Brazil's Amazon deforestation highest since 2008, space agency says

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Brazil's Amazon deforestation highest since 2008, space agency says

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The rainforest loses 9,762 sq km in 12 months, an increase of nearly 30%, Brazil's space agency says.

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Body (P and S waves) and Surface waves (Love and Rayleigh)

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What is Seismology?

Seismology is the study of earthquakes and seismic waves that move through and around the Earth. A seismologist is a scientist who studies earthquakes and seismic waves.

What are Seismic Waves?

Seismic waves are caused by the sudden movement of materials within the Earth, such as slip along a fault during an earthquake. Volcanic eruptions, explosions, landslides, avalanches, and even rushing rivers can also cause seismic waves. Seismic waves travel through and around the Earth and can be recorded with seismometers.

Types of Seismic Waves

There are several different kinds of seismic waves, and they all move in different ways. The two main types of waves are body waves and surface waves. Body waves can travel through the Earth's inner layers, but surface waves can only move along the surface of the planet like ripples on water. Earthquakes send out seismic energy as both body and surface waves.

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Seismology | UPSeis | Michigan Technological University

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Seismology is the study of earthquakes and seismic waves that move through and around the Earth. A seismologist is a scientist who studies earthquakes and seismic waves. Seismic waves are caused by the sudden movement of materials within the Earth, such as slip along a fault during an earthquake.

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Water cycles, carbon cycles, and human interaction

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Human carbon sequestration

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© 2021 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER.

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Role of oceans in the (slow) carbon cycle 

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Role of oceans in the (slow) carbon cycle 

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A* - A   academic reading

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Water cycles

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While the sodden, submerged North of Britain was, literally, wringing out the old year last week, one notorious Yorkshire flood blackspot was celebrating staying dry - despite having been refused a multimillion pound defence scheme.

Pickering, North Yorkshire, pulled off protection by embracing the very opposite of what passes for conventional wisdom. On its citizens' own initiative, it ended repeated inundation by working with nature, not against it.

Its success, and that of similar schemes across the country, should be at the heart of the "complete rethink" of policy being officially promised in the aftermath of last month's floods - which cost the country at least £5 billion - as climate change threatens to make them increasingly commonplace.

And it ridicules an increasingly-voiced contention that these were largely caused by what one columnist called "militant environmentalism" enforced by "green zealots who put protected species above people". By this argument, much advanced by climate change sceptics, the unprecedented north English and Scottish inundations - like those on the Somerset Levels and the Thames Valley two years ago - are down to successive Governments and officials neglecting to take precautionary measures, like dredging rivers, in order to protect wildlife.

If this were true, few places would have better reason than Pickering to want to keep nature at bay. Stuck at the bottom of a steep gorge draining much of the North Yorks Moors, it was flooded four times between 1999 and 2007, with the last disaster doing £7 million of damage.

The solution, its people were officially told, would to be build a £20 million concrete wall through the centre of town to keep the water in the river. No-one thought it was ideal: it would have impaired Pickering's attraction for tourism. But then they were told that they could not have it anyway since too few people would be protected to satisfy the cost-benefit analysis for such schemes enforced on the Environment Agency by the Treasury.

At that point - as Mike Potter, chairman of the Pickering and District Civic Society puts it - the townspeople were "spitting feathers" and decided to take matters into their own hands. Hearing from a local environmentalist how the moors had traditionally released rainwater much more slowly - and of how, centuries ago, monks at nearby Byland Abbey had built a bund to hold it back - they decided to try to go back to the future.

They got together with top academics from Oxford, Newcastle and Durham Universities to examine all options. Much the best plan turned out indeed to be to try to recreate past conditions by slowing the flow of water from the hills. Impressed by the intellectual endorsement, official bodies like the local councils, the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission and even the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, joined in.

They built 167 leaky dams of logs and branches - which let normal flows through but restrict and slow down high ones - in the becks above the town; added 187 lesser obstructions, made of bales of heather and fulfilling the same purpose, in smaller drains and gullies; and planted 29 hectares of woodland. And, after much bureaucratic tangling, they built a bund, to store up to 120,000 cubic metres of floodwater, releasing it slowly through a culvert.

After 24 hours of rain, just three months after it was inaugurated, Mr Potter climbed up to the scheme and found it working well. Then he went home, "switched on the TV, and saw the all the floodwaters elsewhere". He adds: "While there was devastation all over northern England, our newly completed defences worked a treat and our community got on with life as normal." The total cost, he says, was around £2m, a 10th that of the original wall which, he believes, would not have coped with the Boxing Day conditions anyway.

Nor is Pickering alone. A more high-tech scheme, but operating on the same principle, has successfully slowed floodwaters near Glasgow. Building porous wooden dams, and blocking ditches, saved the floodprone Somerset villages of Bossington and Allerford while the Levels flooded two years ago. And the Potteric Carr nature reserve, designed to store floodwater, kept the south of Doncaster dry, even as the north of the city went underwater, in the great floods of 2007.

Such schemes are not the whole solution. Sarah Whatmore, Professor of Environment and Public Policy at Oxford University - who led the academic work in Pickering - says they will often be of most benefit to small communities who do not qualify for more expensive interventions.

And certainly the government should do more to build conventional defences. It is a scandal that both it, and the conservative-led coalition, should have cut spending on them - despite promises - including postponing schemes, as in Kendal and Leeds, that could have cut December's devastation. After all, flood defences return £8 for each £1 invested - a ratio that, say, High Speed 2 would die for - and even the Treasury admits that building them "helps drive growth".

And much more is going to be needed as climate change takes hold. A study, published last week by Oxford University and the Royal Netherlands Metereological Institute, found that global warming made the floods caused by Storm Desmond last month some 40 per cent more likely. Scientists agree they will increase as the world heats up.

We should also stop making ourselves more vulnerable. Half the houses built in Britain in the last 60 years have been plonked onto floodplains, and twice as many are still being built on them as elsewhere.

Even more important, though less publicised, is the need to stop denuding the countryside. Traditionally it - and especially uplands - have acted as a giant sponge, soaking up rainwater and releasing it gently, preventing floods and easing droughts. But even as our officials have tramped round developing countries, urging the importance of maintaining forests and wetlands for this purpose, other branches of government have promoted their destruction at home. The peaty soil of bogs, for example, can be nine-10ths water, but they have been drained and taken to mulch millions of gardens. Trees enable rainwater to penetrate the ground 60 times faster than grassland, but Britain has become one of the least wooded countries in Europe. Too many sheep graze hillsides bare and compact their soil with their hooves, causing rain to sheet off them, yet farmers have been encouraged to overstock.

Heather is burned, with government grants, to 'improve" grouse moors, reducing their ability to retain water. Land left bare between crops also causes rain to run off, eroding the soil; hence the chocolate colour of a flooding river. Maize is probably the most destructive of all - a study of over 3000 sites growing it showed three quarters to be seriously degraded and shedding water - yet it is officially exempted from soil conservation rules governing other crops.

It is the same story in town. As gardens disappear under impervious concrete and decking, stormwater runs off into sewers that can't accommodate it: in London alone, the Wildlife Trusts found land equivalent to two-and-a-half Hyde Parks is lost this way each year. Back in 2010 the Measures to ensure that new developments minimised run-off with "sustainable drainage systems" were enacted in 2010. But the Coalition repeatedly delayed implementing them, then scrapped them.

So, despite the mythology, it is destroying nature that causes floods, while protecting it prevents them. The much-touted dredging can be useful in some places, but generally makes things worse by speeding up river flow and causing more trouble downstream. And it is only removing silt produced upstream from soil erosion that should be prevented in the first place.

Many small scale-efforts are being made, as at Pickering. Blocking ditches in Montgomeryshire has increased the water holding capacity of a 1,100 hectare catchment area by 155 million litres. Restoring Devon's Culm grasslands, by the local Wildlife Trust, quintupled the land's water retention. But natural flood protection needs to happen on a national scale - as it has in the Netherlands the very home of the dyke, for two decades.

Some environmentalists want to slash support for farmers. It would be far better to direct it to reducing flooding by, for example, supporting tree planting and retaining wetlands, and paying landowners to set aside relatively unproductive land to take excess water so as to avoid inundation downstream.

But David Cameron last year allowed EU grants going to such environmentally-friendly purposes to be cut - despite pleas even from his distinctly ungreen environment secretary, Owen Paterson. "Why" he said, spectacularly missing the point "should we be the only saint in the brothel?"

Perhaps, just perhaps, the recent floods will shift such - shall we say - antediluvian attitudes. Opening the Pickering scheme in September, Environment Secretary Liz Truss said "we can use the results we get here much more widely". Let's hope (against hope) that she meant it.
Twitter: @geoffreylean

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The town in Yorkshire that worked with nature to avoid the floods

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While the sodden, submerged North of Britain was, literally, wringing out the old year last week, one notorious Yorkshire flood blackspot was celebrating staying dry - despite having been refused a multimillion pound defence scheme. Pickering, North Yorkshire, pulled off protection by embracing the very opposite of what passes for conventional wisdom.

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Water cycles

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This type of hydrograph is known as a storm or flood hydrograph and it is generally drawn with two vertical axes. One is used to plot a line graph showing the discharge of a river in cumecs (cubic metres per second) at a given point over a period of time.

The second is used to plot a bar graph of the rainfall event which precedes the changes in discharge.

The scale on the horizontal axis is usually in hours/days and this allows both the rain event to be recorded and the subsequent changes in river discharge to be plotted.

The shape of the hydrograph varies according to a number of controlling factors in the drainage basin but it will generally include the following features.

The baseflow of the river represents the normal day to day discharge of the river and is the consequence of groundwater seeping into the river channel. The rising limb of the hydrograph represents the rapid increase in resulting from rainfall causing surface runoff and then later throughflow. Peak discharge occurs when the river reaches its highest level. The time difference between the peak of the rain event and the peak discharge is known as the lag time or basin lag. The falling limb (or recession limb as it is sometimes known) is when discharge decreases and the river's level falls. It has a gentler gradient than the rising limb as most overland flow has now been discharged and it is mainly throughflow which is making up the river water.

A number of factors (known as drainage basin controls) influence the way in which a river responds to precipitation and have an effect on the shape of the hydrograph.

The size, shape and relief of the basin are important controls. Water takes longer to reach the trunk stream in a large, round basin than in does in a small, narrow one.

Where gradients are steep, water runs off faster, reaches the river more quickly and causes a steep rising limb. Prolonged heavy rain causes more overland flow than light drizzly rain.

Areas of permeable rocks and soil allow more infiltration and so less surface run off.

The way in which the land is used will also have an influence on the hydrograph - vegetation intercepts precipitation and allows evaporation to take place directly into the atmosphere so reducing the amount of water available for overland flow while the large number of impermeable surfaces in urban areas encourages run off into gutters and drains carrying water quickly to the nearest river.

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This type of hydrograph is known as a storm or flood hydrograph and it is generally drawn with two vertical axes. One is used to plot a line graph showing the discharge of a river in cumecs (cubic metres per second) at a given point over a period of time.

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Water cycle

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The Beck flowing past business and residential property at risk of flooding in central Pickering

Flood risk in the region

The impact of the 2007 floods was particularly severe in the Yorkshire and Humber Region, with the total damage estimated at £2.1bn. Climate change may increase the frequency of such floods, resulting in a major recurrent cost with significant implications for the regional economy and for affected communities.

The Catchment Flood Management Plans for the region note that the current reliance on engineered flood defences to defend all areas against future flooding is not sustainable. Instead, they identify a need to develop a whole catchment approach to flood risk management.

Land management is recognised as having a significant contribution to make, particularly where engineered flood defences cannot be justified on cost-benefit grounds, but also to improve the effectiveness of existing defences against climate change. It is also consistent with the delivery of an ecosystem services approach to securing a healthy environment.

Why choose Pickering?

The Pickering Beck catchment in North Yorkshire is an ideal, although challenging site to explore how land management practices within an environmentally sensitive area can be modified for flood risk reduction.

Pickering has a long history of flooding and whilst a flood alleviation scheme has been proposed in recent years, it is of too low a priority in terms of cost-benefit to be considered for approval. The town is particularly at risk from summer flash floods due to the steep nature of the catchment.

The project also includes the neighbouring catchment of the River Seven, where the village of Sinnington is similarly at risk from summer floods. This slightly larger catchment has a larger floodplain and an even faster flood response. Its inclusion extends the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of larger-scale planting of floodplain woodland.

Problems with previous land management practices

Previous land management practices in the catchment are considered to have enhanced the risk of Pickering being flooded by promoting rapid runoff and increasing the delivery of sediment and siltation within Pickering Beck.

There are four principal land uses in the 66 km ² catchment, comprising:

Arable crops

Improved grassland

Heather moorland

Forestry and woodland.

Inappropriate cultivation of arable soils, overstocking and overgrazing of grassland, excessive moorland and forestry drainage, and poor river management, are all thought to have increased the risk of downstream flooding.

Opportunities presented

The project seeks to demonstrate the role of best land management practices in correcting past problems and restoring the catchment's natural flood attenuation capacity. There is also the potential to explore a number of 'win-wins', including expected water quality and biodiversity gains associated with better land management.

Catchment measures

Diffuse water pollution is another major local issue, with Pickering Beck failing to meet 'good water status' as defined by the Water Framework Directive. It has been designated a 'Priority Catchment' for improving land management under the England Catchment Sensitive Farming Delivery Initiative (ECSFDI), with additional funding provided for agri-environment schemes.

Related projects

The project builds on previous regional flood risk management projects:

The SPROUT Project (Strategic Partnership for the River Ouse and its tributaries), which identified the important contribution of moorland gripping and coarse sediment delivery to local flood risk;

The Ripon Multi-Objective Project, which highlighted the problems of persuading land owners to implement land management measures and the need to build a partnership that will secure change;

Regional Forestry and Flooding Initiative, which developed a region-wide approach and opportunity mapping to facilitate targeted woodland creation for flood risk reduction;

Rural Economy and Land Use Project, which pioneered new ways of incorporating local knowledge into strategic flood risk management and developed new hydrological models to assess the role of land management.

These projects identified a number of priority areas within the Pickering Beck and River Seven catchments where best land management practices are expected to be effective at reducing flood runoff and the delivery of sediment to watercourses.

See also:

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Slowing the flow at Pickering - Project background

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The Beck flowing past business and residential property at risk of flooding in central Pickering The impact of the 2007 floods was particularly severe in the Yorkshire and Humber Region, with the total damage estimated at £2.1bn. Climate change may increase the frequency of such floods, resulting in a major recurrent cost with significant implications for the regional economy and for affected communities.

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Carbon cycle (fast)

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Soaring deforestation coupled with the destructive policies of Brazil's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, could push the Amazon rainforest dangerously to an irreversible " tipping point" within two years, a prominent economist has said.

After this point the rainforest would stop producing enough rain to sustain itself and start slowly degrading into a drier savannah, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, which would exacerbate global heating and disrupt weather across South America.

The warning came in a policy brief published this week by Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC.

The report sparked controversy among climate scientists. Some believe the tipping point is still 15 to 20 years away, while others say the warning accurately reflects the danger that Bolsonaro and global heating pose to the Amazon's survival.

"It's a stock, so like any stock you run it down, run it down - then suddenly you don't have any more of it," said de Bolle, whose brief also recommended solutions to the current crisis.

Bolsonaro has vowed to develop the Amazon, and his government plans to allow mining on protected indigenous reserves. Amazon farmers support his attacks on environmental protection agencies. His business-friendly environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has met loggers and wildcat miners, while deforestation and Amazon fires have soared since he assumed office in January.

The policy brief noted that Brazil's space research institute, INPE, reported that deforestation in August was 222% higher than in August 2018. Maintaining the current rate of increase INPE reported between January and August this year would bring the Amazon "dangerously close to the estimated tipping point as soon as 2021 ... beyond which the rainforest can no longer generate enough rain to sustain itself", de Bolle wrote.

De Bolle is also head of the Latin American studies programme at Johns Hopkins University and last month addressed a US Congress committee on preserving the Amazon. She called her prediction a "provocation".

"If Bolsonaro is serious about developing the Amazon without paying any attention to sustainability or maintaining the forest's standing, these rates would happen within his mandate," she said.

Carlos Nobre, one of Brazil's leading climate scientists and a senior researcher at the University of São Paulo's Institute for Advanced Studies, questioned her calculation that estimated deforestation would quadruple from an estimate of nearly 18,000 km2 this year to nearly 70,000 km2 by 2021.

"It seems very improbable to me - the projected deforestation increase is more an economic calculation than ecological," he said. However, he added: "We are seeing an increase in deforestation, I am not questioning this."

Last year, Nobre argued in an article written with celebrated American conservation biologist Thomas Lovejoy that the Amazon tipping point could happen in eastern, southern and central Amazonia when 20% to 25% of the rainforest has been felled - not expected for 20 to 25 years. He has since brought forward his prediction by about five years.

"The Amazon is already 17% deforested, so when you calculate at the current rate of deforestation, this 20% to 25% is reached in 15 to 20 years," he said. "I hope she is wrong. If she is right, it is the end of the world."

But Lovejoy, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, said that de Bolle's projection could come true because global heating, soaring deforestation and an increase in Amazon fires have created a "negative synergy" that is accelerating its destruction - citing droughts in recent years as a warning sign.

"We are seeing the first flickering of that tipping," he said. "It's sort of like a seal trying to balance a rubber ball on its nose ... the only sensible thing to do is to do some reforestation and build back that margin of safety."

Among other commitments under the Paris climate deal, signed by leftist former president Dilma Rousseff, Brazil agreed to reforest 12m hectares and end illegal deforestation by 2030.

Mongabay reported last month that Brazil looks increasingly unlikely to meet its Paris targets. Deforestation began rising under Rousseff in 2013 after nine years of decline and has accelerated under Bolsonaro.

Claudio Angelo of the Climate Observatory - an umbrella of non-profit environmental groups - said he thought de Bolle's calculations were too pessimistic, but praised her brief's other recommendations.

These included expanding the Amazon fund, which finances sustainable rainforest projects to include the United States and other countries so that Brazil is not expected to fund rainforest protection virtually on its own. The Amazon Fund is currently financed by Norway and Germany, but both countries suspended payments in August.

De Bolle said Brazil should revive a resolution that made rural credit financed by public banks dependent on lenders proving that they complied with environmental and other laws. "That's a big stick," she said.

Angelo said "the points [de Bolle] made are quite real". "For all the madness, Bolsonaro did manage to make people talk about the Amazon," he said.

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Amazon rainforest 'close to irreversible tipping point'

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Soaring deforestation coupled with the destructive policies of Brazil's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, could push the Amazon rainforest dangerously to an irreversible " tipping point" within two years, a prominent economist has said.

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Not on your spec but useful to contrast with global cities, liveable cities, sustainable cities

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Plate Tectonics-What Are the Forces that Drive Plate Tectonics?

Date: December 12, 2017 6min 40s Novice Spanish

Heat and gravity are fundamental to the process

Lithospheric plates are part of a planetary scale thermal convection system. The energy source for plate tectonics is Earth's internal heat while the forces moving the plates are the "ridge push" and "slab pull" gravity forces.
It was once thought that mantle convection could drive plate motions. Early textbooks showed mantle convection cells, like in a beaker of hot liquid on a Bunsen burner, pushing plates along from below. Convection in the mantle, certainly plays a role, but doesn't explain how some plates move faster than the convective currents beneath them. What would cause that? Current dynamic models have plates moving as part of a gravity-driven convection system that pushes young hot plates away from spreading ridges and pulls old cold plates down into subduction zones.

CLOSED CAPTIONING: A .srt file is included with the download. Use appropriate media player to utilize captioning.

Keypoints:

The forces that drive Plate Tectonics include:

Convection in the Mantle (heat driven)

Ridge push (gravitational force at the spreading ridges)

Slab pull (gravitational force in subduction zones)

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Plate Tectonics-What Are the Forces that Drive Plate Tectonics?- Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology

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Date: December 12, 2017 6min 40s Novice Spanish Heat and gravity are fundamental to the process Lithospheric plates are part of a planetary scale thermal convection system. The energy source for plate tectonics is Earth's internal heat while the forces moving the plates are the "ridge push" and "slab pull" gravity forces.

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Typhoon Haiyan long-term

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The cash after the storm: building resilience to future disasters

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After Typhoon Haiyan, Mercy Corps used e-transfers in the Philippines to provide emergency assistance and develop resilience in affected communities

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he has barely ever been in a car, and never eaten meat or flown. Now 31, she lives on the 15th floor of a city centre tower from where she can just see the ocean 500 yards away on one side and the suburbs and informal settlements sprawling as far as the eye can see on the other.

Life is OK in this megacity. She earns the exact median income and is as green as she feels she can be: she has no children yet, her carbon footprint is negligible, and her apartment, built in the early 2000s, has been retrofitted for climate change with deep insulation, its own solar air-con and heating systems.

It has a "living" wall of plants and a balcony where she grows a few vegetables. Waste is automatically sorted or composted. Outside it may be roasting, with temperatures often higher than 40C. Inside, she's cool.

Short-haul flights have been stopped, and she is allowed just one return long-haul flight a year

She loves where she lives, even though the water tastes slightly salty sometimes and there are often electricity outages in the summer months because of the frequent droughts affecting reservoir levels. Her windows catch the breeze, and because the mayor has adapted to climate change by banning cars across the whole city centre and no fossil fuels are burned nearby, there's little air pollution. She feels healthy.

Food is expensive because of the massive floods and droughts that have affected the world's main food-growing areas, but most of hers is organically grown and is delivered by drone from the nearby 20-storey "farmscraper" built 10 years ago. Most cities of this size grow as much of their own food as possible these days, as a way to reduce transport emissions.

To make extra money last year, she traded in her annual government carbon and meat quotas. Short-haul flights have been stopped anyway, and like everyone her age, she is allowed just one return flight a year.

But she doesn't need to travel much now. The city authorities have thrown money at protecting infrastructure and helping people adapt to the higher temperatures and ever more frequent storms. The green spaces have been re-wilded. She can walk safely down the shady, tree-lined streets, cool off in the lido, or visit the urban forest, which the far-sighted city mayor started 20 years ago on wasteland.

But now she really worries. She may have adapted her own life as far as possible to climate change, but so much is out of her control. The world's population has grown by 2.5 billion people since she was born in 2019, and carbon concentrations reached the 550 ppm (parts per million) milestone last year - just as the IPCC scientists had forecast they would. They were just 407 ppm when she was born.

Quick Guide
What zero emissions in 2050 would mean for the UK

The Committee on Climate Change says cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 is necessary, affordable and desirable. Here are some of the actions needed to make that happen:

* Petrol and diesel cars banned from sale ideally by 2030 and 2035 at the latest.

* Quadrupling clean electricity production from wind, solar and perhaps nuclear, plus batteries to store it and connections to Europe to share the load.

* Connection of new homes to the gas grid ending in 2025, with boilers using clean hydrogen or replaced by electric powered heat pumps. Plus, all homes and appliances being highly efficient.

* Beef, lamb and dairy consumption falling by 20%, though this is far lower than other studies recommend and a bigger shift to plant-based diets would make meeting the zero target easier.

* A fifth of all farmland - 15% of the UK - being converted to tree planting and growing biofuel crops and restoration of peat bogs. This is vital to take CO2 out of the air to balance unavoidable emissions from cattle and planes.

* 1.5bn new trees will be needed, meaning more than 150 football pitches a day of new forests from now to 2050.

* Flying would not be banned, but the number of flights will depend on how much airlines can cut emissions with electric planes or biofuels.

Thank you for your feedback.

Despite some international action on climate change, global warming passed the 1.5C mark - considered the maximum for long-term safety - in 2040 and is now heading inexorably for 3C or 3.5C, possibly within 100 years. That is really dangerous and means food and water will be scarcer, the rains will be heavier, and even more people will flood in from rural areas to the city.

Worst of all, the continuing loss of ice at the poles and in the great mountain ranges means sea levels are rising faster than most would have believed possible 30 years ago. The last great superstorm, caused by extraordinarily warm temperatures in the Arctic, flooded miles of coastal settlements and forced the permanent evacuation of dozens of expensive ocean-side apartment blocks. Waves crashed 100 metres beyond the new, higher sea walls. That's when her water started to taste salty.

Perhaps the time has come for her to sell up and migrate to higher land, she thinks. She has been told that the underground water supplies to her tower block are beginning to be polluted with seawater and might only last 10 years, and that her tower could be deemed unsafe to live in within 20 years because of flooding. But it's far worse in most parts of the city. There the extremely poor don't live in strong houses, and can't build higher walls, relocate, borrow money or adapt so easily.

But if she left, where would she go? Every year her apartment is worth less because it is so close to the ocean; property on higher ground now attracts premium prices. Her city has grown vastly in the previous 20 years, as droughts and floods have made farming less profitable and hundreds of thousands of climate-affected people have migrated in from rural areas. Many of them live with only patchy public transport, and endure dreadful air pollution and heat.

This is the climate breakdown reality she was warned about at school, and why she skipped classes to join the great demonstrations of the 2030s. Back in October 2019, the C40 group of 94 global megacities had used IPCC and World Bank figures to forecast that 1.6 billion people living in over 970 world cities would be regularly exposed to extreme high temperatures by 2050.

It said another 800 million people living in 570 cities would be vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal flooding, including the world's great coastal cities. And it also said that 2.5 billion people (or nearly one in four people on Earth) would be living in the over 1,600 cities where national food supplies were threatened by the climate crisis - including supposedly richer cities such as Athens, Barcelona, Istanbul and Los Angeles. These predictions proved to be accurate.

Her city did its best to adapt, inspired perhaps by a report from the Coalition for Urban Transitions, backed by some of the world's leading economists, that showed that governments that invested in low-carbon cities could not just help mitigate the effects of the climate crisis but could also massively enhance economic prosperity, attract the most talented people - and, not incidentally, make cities far better places to live.

Permanently cutting 90% of urban emissions in 2019 would have cost the world $1.8tn but would have been generating annual returns of $7tn by now, it said.

"Cities are engines of growth, innovation and prosperity," António Guterres, then UN secretary general, had said. "It is possible and realistic to realise net-zero emissions by 2050. But to get there we will need the full engagement of city governments combined with national action and support."

Sadly, most governments did not pay much attention. It's easy to be wise in retrospect, but money spent then would have been the best investment ever made, she knows. Now the figures seem conservative. Now it is a race against time.

How likely is this future?

By 2050, cities will be home to over 70% of the world population. The great global challenge is to adapt them to the changing climate and reduce emissions.

That means conserving water, planting trees, banning fossil fuels, changing diets, adapting farming, improving soils, reducing air pollution which contributes to warming, and even painting buildings white to reflect heat.

Many north European cities have started to ditch diesel and petrol, ban cars and plastic and turn to renewable power, aiming to be "carbon-zero". Seoul is planting 30m trees and expanding its green spaces vastly to create shade; Melbourne and many other Australian and British cities will benefit from ambitious street tree-planting programmes. Denmark, one of the most urban of all European countries, aims to cut emissions by 70% by 2030; its capital, Copenhagen, aims to be carbon-neutral by 2025.

Many cities have less money or access to technology, but even those are developing ambitious adaptation schemes. São Paulo is reducing emissions by paying people to use less water and energy. Dar es Salaam and some cities in Canada are relocating people who live in flood-vulnerable properties and pulling down their houses. Many cities have banned any kind of building in wetland areas.

Some of the richest cities, such as New York, are planning huge ocean barriers to protect the most valuable properties; others, such as London, are overhauling their drainage systems to cope with greater populations and heavier rains.

In poorer countries such as Bangladesh, city mayors and governments have concentrated on improving early warning systems and developing urban resilience. Mexico City has saved power (and improved health) by installing thousands of rainwater harvesting and water-purification systems.

It's not only a question of money. Those cities that start early in adapting for the climate breakdown will be the most successful, says Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

"Our long history of catastrophe gave us a head-start," he says. "Bangladesh has one of the best plans in the world for adaptation. Everyone is involved, from schoolchildren to urban mayors and governments. Communities here are not waiting.

"The climate problem has indeed become a matter of urgency. This message is reverberating among both the young and old generations around the world."
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The climate crisis in 2050: what happens if cities act but nations don't?

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he has barely ever been in a car, and never eaten meat or flown. Now 31, she lives on the 15th floor of a city centre tower from where she can just see the ocean 500 yards away on one side and the suburbs and informal settlements sprawling as far as the eye can see on the other.

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Brownfield sites are a common eyesore on the edges of many cities; the abandoned, decaying hulks of industrial or commercial structures sit rusting and forgotten while they leach harmful chemicals such as asbestos, solvents or heavy metals into the soil. Some brownfields lie virtually untouched for years because it is often cheaper to expand cities into virgin territory than to demolish large structures or engage in the costly clean-up of contaminants. But in many urban areas in developed nations, especially in Europe, land has become increasingly scarce around cities and brownfields have become more attractive economically for new development.

Today, governments increasingly distinguish brownfield sites on the basis of their conservation value.

But though city planners have been idle, Mother Nature has not. While brownfield sites were once widely regarded as being of no ecological value and fit only for redevelopment, that view has been changing over the past few years, as scientists have discovered that these abandoned sites harbour rich and sophisticated ecosystems that often provide space for rare or threatened species (Figs and ). Today, governments increasingly distinguish brownfield sites on the basis of their conservation value. In the UK, for example, the government has added some brownfields-described as 'open mosaic habitats on previously developed land'-to its list of priority sites listed in its Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 (NERC Act). This list has to be taken into account in planning for redevelopment. At the same time, molecular and 'omics' technologies are being used to further analyse and categorise the ecological value of brownfields and how they could be better exploited for conservation measures.

Although there are many types of brownfield, the ones valuable for conservation fall into two broad categories: wetlands, and dry ground that is typically well drained, poor in nutrients and sometimes contaminated. Wetlands in particular provide havens for water birds, whose natural habitats have been shrinking. Birds are fairly flexible in choosing their habitats and are rarely confined to artificial wetlands, but such bodies of water nonetheless extend their range and ensure they are present in urban areas. "I am unaware of any water birds or other species that have survived almost exclusively in artificial wetlands and it is unlikely for water birds, as one of their characteristics is extreme mobility", commented Chris Murray from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Nevertheless, Murray added, urban lakes and storm water treatment wetlands are playing increasingly important roles in maintaining adequate habitats for many wading and hunting birds such as the White-faced Heron that tend to favour relatively shallow waters.

In contrast, the dry ground on derelict sites typically occupied by large industrial or utility buildings is deemed of greater value by many conservationists because it can offer sanctuaries for rare or endangered species. These areas mimic naturally occurring sand dunes and heathland quite accurately given their nutrient-depleted ground and poor water retention, according to Sarah Henshall, Lead Ecologist at Buglife, the UK's Invertebrate Conservation Trust. The lack of nutrients discourages fast-growing plants such as grasses, hawthorn, bindweed and ivy that quickly take over more fertile ground. "You get lots of wild flowers in these habitats and so lots of nectar and pollen, and these sites also tend to be unmanaged so that there is plenty of dead and decaying bramble or wood that provide ideal over-wintering habitats for invertebrates", Henshall explained. "Bumblebees and pollinators in general love brownfield sites, as do butterflies, again because of all the pollen sources, along with ground beetles, spiders and dragonflies".

For the same reason, naturally occurring nutrient-poor and well-drained sandy or heathland areas have always punched above their weight in contributing to invertebrate biodiversity. One difference between them and brownfields, however, is that because brownfields are often in populated areas, they also attract plants from domestic gardens, including both indigenous and exotic species. As a result, some brownfields have a unique combination of flora and fauna. Henshall suggested that brownfield sites can even be superior in terms of biodiversity compared to natural habitats because they combine a wide range of desirable features within a small area within an urban region. "Brownfields provide a good mosaic of habitats, and you often get lots of connected areas so that invertebrates can move between them", she explained. Buglife's list of the top five sites in the UK for rare and endangered species actually includes two brownfields. Some species, such as the Street Bombardier beetle, are now confined solely to brownfield sites in the UK, in this case in the London area. Similarly, the Distinguished Jumping Spider is confined to just two brownfield sites close to London within the county of Essex. "The spider likes saline sandy environments that are quite distributed, just the same as the Bombardier Beetle, with open sunny areas and lots of other beetles to feed on", Henshall said. "They all in turn rely on plant species found only at these sites". She emphasised that these species have not adapted to specialise in brownfields in the way that some have to urban environments in general. It is just that the brownfields mimic their original habitats.

The types of brownfields favoured by wild flowers and invertebrates are typically in the early stages of succession: they have not yet developed deeper soils that are richer in nutrients and which favour faster growing plants. "It is these sites that are most unique from an ecological point of view", explained Philip Jones from the Greater Manchester Ecology Unit in the UK. "You typically start off with a brownfield site that is essentially ground with no soil. Then, lichens and mosses come in and soil is blown in, enabling grasses and then shrubs to come in as the soil gets deeper and then finally get to a tree stage". However, not all brownfields ever get to that stage, either being redeveloped first or being stuck at an earlier stage for some reason. "We should, as far as we can, ensure that there are examples of brownfields at each of these stages as they all have their value for conservation", Jones said.

In some cases, it may be desirable for brownfields to reach later stages of succession as quickly as possible. This especially applies to a different type of brownfield: the verges alongside major roads, particularly dual carriage motorways; rapid progression to later stages with trees and shrubs provides a pleasing backdrop for drivers and can help reduce traffic noise in the surrounding area. Mature roadside verges can also provide green corridors between adjoining habitats, according to Fernando Maestre, a specialist in roadside environments at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain. "On the one hand, roadside grasslands are becoming an increasingly abundant ecosystem worldwide and thus ecologists are becoming increasingly aware of the need to understand and manage them", he said. "On the other hand, these grasslands provide unique opportunities to study important ecological processes, such as plant succession, ecosystem development and habitat connectivity".

One finding from Maestre's research on Spanish roadside verges is that the succession process can be sped up significantly by intervening both in the verges themselves and in the surrounding area to enhance fertility and diversification . "Our results suggest that natural vegetation dynamics effectively improved ecosystem development within a time frame of 20 years in the grasslands evaluated", said Maestre. "They also indicate that this time could be shortened if management actions focus on firstly maintaining well-conserved natural areas close to roadsides to enhance plant compositional changes towards late-successional stages, secondly increasing biological soil crust cover in areas under strong erosion risk, to avoid soil loss, and thirdly enhancing soil microbial functional diversity in resource-limited areas, to enhance soil carbon and nitrogen accumulation". The Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment has now adopted these findings in its "good practices" manual for restoring roadside grasslands.

While mature roadside grasslands may be less conducive for invertebrates than industrial brownfields, they can be very attractive for some mammals. In Spain and in neighbouring Portugal, the European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus, which is endangered through a combination of diseases, predation, hunting and habitat loss, has thrived in roadside grasslands, according to Maestre. "In our study area, these habitats are very attractive for these rabbits: they find food, shelter and predator-free areas in a highly urbanised environment".

However, the narrow width of roadside verges makes them a dangerous place for mammals in general, which can also represent a danger to drivers, according to Jane MacKintosh, Grassland Adviser for Scottish Natural Heritage in the UK. For this reason, MacKintosh advocates avoiding any measures that encourage the migration of mammals along verges, unless there are adjacent fields and woods to create a larger habitat. But she acknowledged that roadside verges can also provide greater diversity: "Road verges can provide space for species-rich grassland and scrub; habitats that have largely been removed from the lowland farming landscape", she said. "Equally important, perhaps, they can provide green corridors between fragmented patches of habitat".

MacKintosh also challenged the notion that brownfields are best left unmanaged, arguing that controlled intervention was often the best strategy to maximise their conservation value. "Unmanaged habitats untouched by humans are not necessarily the most biodiverse", she explained. "For example, if left unfertilised, grazed grassland can be extremely species-rich, but it will become rank and species-poor when ungrazed or uncut"-because grass growing uncut on fertile ground can smother other plants and deprive animals of food sources. "My view is that biodiversity on grassy road verges depends on appropriate management rather than lack of management", MacKintosh added, citing the example of the Lecropt orchid native to Scotland, which can thrive on roadside embankments but only if encroaching plants such as hawthorn are controlled.

At least roadside verges can provide stable habitats that will not change much once they have matured. But an issue for many early succession brownfield sites in urban areas is that they are constantly under the threat of redevelopment. An extreme example occurred in London as a result of the massive development for the 2012 Olympic Games, which according to Henshall eliminated 60% of the valuable brownfield land that had existed in 2008 in the Thames Gateway area.

As a consequence, there has been increased focus on more coordinated management of brownfields across major cities to ensure that the habitats destroyed by development are replaced with new ones. There have even been calls for a fundamental shift away from building on brownfields towards using greenbelt or farming land instead, according to Henshall. "We should strip away labels like brown and green and prioritise development on land of lowest ecological value and in some cases this might be green", she said.

... brownfield sites can even be superior in terms of biodiversity compared to natural habitats because they combine a wide range of desirable features within a small area ...

Some measures designed to exploit brownfields are less controversial than the idea of starting to build on greenbelt land around cities. One such measure is to encourage the development of green and brown rooftops designed to emulate brownfield sites with their low-nutrient and well-drained soils to attract wild flowers and pollinators. This is happening in the UK, where there is even a wetlands roof on top of London's Victoria & Albert Museum. Such roof top habitats are not perfect, though, because while most flowers and flying insects can get up there, ground-level invertebrates such as beetles often cannot. But they still serve a useful purpose interconnecting ground-level brownfields for some species.

Meanwhile, there has been an increase in research dedicated to the ecology of brownfields and the factors that can contribute to maximising biodiversity in urban areas and protecting rare species. There is also interest in creating artificial brownfields, such as the brown rooftops, and perhaps even tailoring environments for specific species. But as Henshall noted, it is still not clear what initial conditions favour conservation in general. "Brownfields are, after all, human made, so it should be possible to recreate them", he said. "But we don't know yet whether we can just take some sand and chuck it on a site and then over time it will develop into a high value brownfield, or whether it is a bit more complex, to do with geology or underlying hydrology". There are also specific questions about the requirements of rare species, which by definition tend to be very fussy about their food sources or other aspects of their habitat.

Recently, systematic studies have been conducted on the relationship between species of interest and brownfield properties such as size and existing diversity. One of the first such studies assessed how much open land must be permanently preserved in a city in the face of ongoing redevelopment in order to maintain as much biodiversity as possible. It found that biodiversity and protection for rare species could be maintained in the face of a dynamic environment-where sites are constantly being created and destroyed-but only if brownfields are set aside for an average of 15 years before being redeveloped . The main recommendation therefore was that urban planning should incorporate the concept of "temporary conservation" to optimise the conservational value of brownfields.

This was followed by another study, which used a modelling approach to examine more specifically the relationship between characteristics of brownfields in Germany's capital, Berlin, and prospects for birds defined as Species of European Conservation concern (SPEC). The authors identified 55 brownfields and 12 such SPEC bird species, focusing on eight for which sufficient data were available to build simulation models. Their main finding was that the occurrence of endangered bird species on a particular site depends mostly on area size and structure of the vegetation, and to a lesser extent on the overall brownfield network in the city . For birds, it matters more that there are brownfields of sufficient size and quality, rather than that there are a lot of brownfield sites per se. Another significant finding was that intrusion by humans and dogs had no significant effect on bird populations, which may help explain why urban brownfields have proved more valuable for bird conservation than had been anticipated.

Another approach to studying the biodiversity of brownfields and their interaction with surrounding habitats is DNA barcoding, which enables researchers to take a broad sweep of biodiversity more quickly and easily than traditional techniques that involve analysing species individually. DNA barcoding identifies organisms via a short standard segment of DNA: in the case of animals, this is typically around 600 base pairs of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase I, or chloroplast genes for plants. While DNA barcoding has proven to be controversial for some applications, it is definitely suitable for identifying what organisms are present in an environmental sample, in particular in soil, according to Simon Joly, a specialist in barcoding at the University of Montreal in Canada. "In urban biodiversity studies, barcoding is also useful as another biodiversity measure in addition to species diversity and functional diversity, via phylogenetic diversity", he said.

There have even been calls for a fundamental shift away from building on brownfields towards using greenbelt or farming land instead...

Phylogenetic diversity is essentially the aggregate evolutionary distance between organisms based on analysis of the DNA, in this case obtained from barcodes. "Phylogenetic diversity gives an estimate of the amount of evolutionary history present in a sample, and it is often used as a proxy for functional diversity as the two are generally correlated and because barcoding data is much easier to obtain than functional trait data", Joly said. "In other words, by using sequences from organisms found at a given site, we can have an idea of how functionally or ecologically diverse the site is and whether it has the potential to provide significant ecosystem services".

These are early days for DNA barcoding of brownfields, but Joly has co-authored a recent study that assesses its overall potential for conservation . One of the most interesting findings was that in the case of plants, there is a distinct difference in the response to environmental factors in terms of biodiversity above ground, based on analysis of leaves and stems, and below ground, as measured by roots and rhizomes. Soil fertility, for example, increases diversity below ground but decreases it above ground, corroborating the finding from observational studies that wild flowers are more abundant on nutrient-poor sites.

Some brownfields can thus serve as valuable laboratories for studying the impact of environmental factors on particular species and their relative success or abundance. Maestre and colleagues, for example, have studied the effects of both water and nutrient availability on the relative dominance and physiological performance of three key functional groups of plants-grasses, non-legume forbs and legumes in roadside verges in Spain . These are all flowering plants, but are separate classes: legumes include various vegetable crops such as peas and beans, while forbs include sunflowers and clover. The main conclusions of their work are that roadside grasslands do not respond as a unit to a change in an environmental variable such as rainfall, but exhibit significant variations between species. Secondly, artificial systems, such as roadside grasslands, respond differently than naturally occurring habitats, given that the former do not have the same composition of plant species. This will have knock on effects on the whole ecosystem, including on animals, and might also provide clues about how to create habitats that perhaps mitigate the impact of environmental change on vulnerable species.

Some brownfields can thus serve as valuable laboratories for studying the impact of environmental factors on particular species and their relative success or abundance

In the light of ongoing habitat and biodiversity loss as a result of climate change, development and land use for agriculture, brownfield sites appear to hold great potential for preserving biodiversity and protecting rare species, at least in densely populated and urban environments. To utilise them to their full extent, however, will require more knowledge about the specific factors that create and maintain diversity to properly manage and protect these lands, knowledge that will come with more research and the increasing use of molecular tools.

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Brown is the new green: Brownfield sites often harbour a surprisingly large amount of biodiversity

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Brownfield sites are a common eyesore on the edges of many cities; the abandoned, decaying hulks of industrial or commercial structures sit rusting and forgotten while they leach harmful chemicals such as asbestos, solvents or heavy metals into the soil.

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London

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Derelict London - Photography, Social History and Guided Walking Tours

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To advertise on the Derelict London please click here.

"Paul Talling's mesmerising website.... John Betjeman would have been proud of him"
Whats On in London

"Genius"
Danny Baker BBC London

Welcome to the Derelict London website

This website has now been around for 19 years. In that time, my random wanderings around London have often been described as psychogeography and that little known penchant for walking around derelict buildings with a camera has been branded urban exploration (aka urbex). This site doesn't fit into any category or belong to any forum. There are no rules.

​This is not a compilation of familiar tourist sights, as another of those is hardly needed, but a depiction of an (often unpicturesque) view of everyday life in London

The site is obviously not taken to illustrate London at its most beautiful or most successful, the name Derelict London is a memorable name for a website though not everything within this site is of derelict areas and everyone has their definition of derelict......99% of these pictures were taken by myself during many miles of walkabouts around the great capital. After years of travelling via car or public transport, I realised just how little I had seen of London. (i.e. just stepping back and looking at buildings and people). I've enjoyed putting this site together and will continue to add more pics. Try not to be too critical because I'm no professional photographer. Neither is this some trendy art student project..... Any places you think should be on this site? Let me know. Also, info (however trivial) or stories/personal memories on any of the buildings would be appreciated.

Apart from the odd tip off, most of the locations on this site are on here because I randomly stumbled upon them when walking down the street.

Pics are frequently added to this site, so please keep coming back. Also check out my other websites: www.londonslostrivers.com and www.londonslostmusicvenues.com. You are welcome to befriend me on Facebook and "Like" the Derelict London Facebook Fan page, "follow" the Instagram Page and @derelict_london on Twitter and maybe see you on one of my guided walking tours.

PAUL TALLING June 2022 - All Photographs on this website are Copyright!!

'I love walking in London,' said Mrs. Dalloway, 'Really, it's better than walking in the country.'
Virginia Woolf, 1924

"Although it has quainter pleasures, much of the appeal of Paul Talling's excellent little book Derelict London is in how it seems to trace the skeleton of a dead city while it is still in apparently rude health.In a city so devoted to making fast money, and busily fighting a one-way class war under the rubric of "regeneration", sweeping undesirables and their buildings away to the outskirts, it is almost comforting that relics and ruins still cling on to its landscape, throwing workaday time into a spin. As much as it is an inadvertent vision of how London might look after a catastrophe, D erelict London is valuable as a document of the one going on right in front of us."
THE NEW STATESMAN

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To advertise on the Derelict London please click here. "Paul Talling's mesmerising website.... John Betjeman would have been proud of him" Whats On in London "Genius" Danny Baker BBC London Welcome to the Derelict London website This website has now been around for 19 years.

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Twice a week, the Guardian brings you the latest science and environment news.

Twice a week, the Guardian brings you the latest science and environment news.

It's great

Very interesting and makes my subscription worth it!

No longer science

Science weekly has gone massively downhill it the last few years, since the pandemic the focus has shifted away from general science and more towards health, now nearly every episode is mainly reporting news that concerns health and drugs

Ads too long

The episode didn't start until 2 minutes 45 in a 13 minute episode. I understand the need for ads but you're taking the piss here.

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Twice a week, the Guardian brings you the latest science and environment news. Twice a week, the Guardian brings you the latest science and environment news. Very interesting and makes my subscription worth it!

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hen the Romans built Londinium circa AD 50, they chose a good place to start. The land on the north side of the river latterly known as the Thames sloped upwards; that on its swampy southern bank did not. The threat of flooding seems not to have been lost on those imperial adventurers whom Boris Johnson has termed a " bunch of pushy Italians". Today, the high ground we call the City of London would still stay mostly dry if the river burst its banks. The same cannot be said of much else of the capital lying close to its aquatic spine.

The Environment Agency's "at risk" list includes the Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, City Hall, Canary Wharf, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Kew Gardens, the O2 Arena, 51 railway stations, 35 Underground stations, eight power stations, more than 1,000 electricity substations, 400 schools, 16 hospitals and over half a million of Greater London's roughly 3.3 million homes - not to mention 1.5 million of its people. Large areas of Southwark, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Hammersmith, Fulham, Wandsworth, Barking, Dagenham, Woolwich and Newham could find themselves under water, along with many settlements along the estuary in Essex and Kent.

Put it this way: Londoners have a lot to thank the Thames's flood defences for. Chief among these is, of course, the Thames Barrier, the huge, vaguely sci-fi string of mini-piers and silver pods that spans the eastern gateway to the capital between New Charlton and Silvertown.

Last winter, from early December 2013 to the end of February last year, its steel gates were closed a record-shattering 50 times, preventing the river from running riot. Previously, the barrier had closed only 124 times since it began operating in 1982. The agency described this sharp increase in demand as a "blip" and, apart from routine testing, the barrier hasn't been closed since. However, during its lifetime there's been a strong, overall upward trend: it was closed four times in the 1980s, 35 times in the 90s, and 75 times in the 2000s. There have been 65 closures since 2010, suggesting this climb is continuing.

Is a watery end nigh? Not in the foreseeable future, says the agency - but the need to look far ahead was recognised early this century with a project entitled Thames Estuary 2100, established to manage flood risk through to 2100. A plan produced in November 2012 primarily addressed the biggest threat: surges in the twice-daily North Sea tides that drive water past Southend and Sheerness, right through the centre of London and out the other side as far as Teddington in its south-western suburbs.

... the greatest tide that ever was remembered in England to have been in this river, all Whitehall having been drowned

Samuel Pepys, 1663

The plan set out options for a whole new flood barrier, the most promising location (option 3.2) being further east, beyond London's boundaries at Long Reach, Dartford. But it anticipates the present barrier continuing to do its job until 2070, four decades longer than originally thought, thanks to improved maintenance and revised predictions about sea levels.

The exceptional winter of 2013/14 did, though, prompt the agency to review its impacts on the barrier's present and future operations. A report produced last August noted that the first closure of the period, completed during the first half hour of 6 December, had protected London from "the highest tide seen at Southend in over 30 years of operations".

The other exceptional element of the 50 closures cluster was that the great majority - 41 of them - were prompted not by tidal surges from the east, but by prolonged heavy rainfall in the Thames catchment area to the west of the capital. The resulting increases in "fluvial flow" downstream created the second type of reason for closing the barrier - protecting vulnerable locations just upstream from Teddington, such as the village of Thames Ditton and the residential Trowlock Island.

These are put at risk when the pressure of the tidal Thames waters arriving from the other direction further boosts already high water levels. But that risk is reduced if, over on the opposite side of the city, the barrier is closed just after low tide. This effectively turns the London stretch of the river into a temporary reservoir with spare room into which the extra fluvial waters can freely pass. Once the tide has receded and levels on either side of the barrier match, the barrier is opened again, and the contents of the "reservoir" released to resume their journey towards the sea.

The impacts report said that while vital maintenance work on the barrier had been able to continue throughout the three demanding months, "if 50 closures was to become the norm this would start to impact on the reliability of the barrier." It concluded that a repeat was unlikely, noting that solar and lunar conditions contributing to higher tides will not recur before 2032 "then not again until 3182". But it also underlined the expectation that the barrier will need to be closed more often against tides, and consequntly will be able to come to the Teddington area's aid less frequently. A new scheme to augment the locks and weirs there is being worked on.

Computer-aided design didn't exist [when the barrier was built]. It was put together from 13,000 pen and ink drawings

Tidal defences manager Andy Batchelor

Localised flooding in London from Thames tributaries may be increasing as a risk in its own right, as experts told the London Assembly's environment committee last January. It is estimated that 24,000 properties are under significant threat. Parts of Kingston, Barnet and Waltham Forest were top of the list. In response, the London Rivers Action Plan, supported by the mayor, has been restoring rivers previously constrained in artificial channels, giving them greater width and a safety margin for flooding into surrounding green space, improving habitats for plants and wildlife in the process. The river Quaggy, which passes through Lewisham, Greenwich and Bromley, is cited as a good example.

Exactly half of the Thames barrier's 174 lifetime closures have been to help alleviate river flooding. But tides, the biggest worry, are its core business. Surges begin with bands of low atmospheric pressure originating in the Atlantic, which have the effect of raising sea levels. After passing north of Scotland, these high-water humps swing south down England's east coast before funnelling into the Thames's open mouth, sometimes heightened further by strong winds. "A surge tide entering the estuary can increase water levels by one to three metres," the TE2100 plan explains.

The planners have put mitigating the effects of climate change at centre stage. They expect it to produce raised average sea levels, surge tide levels and wave heights in the coming decades, albeit by less than previously thought. Meanwhile, land levels in the south-east of England are falling - only by about 1.5mm a year, but over the course of a century it all adds up. In addition, development along the river's banks is slowly invading its space, leaving less room within which its waters can expand.

The TE2100 plan sets out an action programme, already being put into effect, for building resilience into the floodplain environment. Setting new buildings back from the waterfront helps, as a buffer of green can double as an overspill facility. The space in front of the barrier's visitor centre exemplifies the principle: when the barrier shuts out a high tide, the resulting build-up can put its picnic tables under water. The chancellor George Osborne allocated £196m for the Thames Estuary programme in December.

In the barrier's operations centre, which looks out across that famous row of stainless steel-clad shells, tidal defences manager Andy Batchelor emphasises the integration of many elements is key to maintaining a safe level for the Thames. To the east they include a barrier at Barking Creek where the River Roding meets the Thames and, beyond the Greater London boundary, a floodgate at Tilbury Dock and the finely named Fobbing Horse barrier at Canvey Island.

Less conspicuous but just as vital to the system are the over 400 gates and smaller structures protecting homes, business and other buildings along the river's length, and the more than 185 miles of embankments and walls. Hanging on the operations centre wall, a photograph shows the Queen's visit there for at the barrier's official opening in 1984.

As Batchelor observes, the power station look of the original control consoles is long gone. Today, the space is hushed and computerised, a monitoring hub for its own data and more from the Met Office and the UK National Tidegauge Network, enabling forecasts of dangerous conditions up to 36 hours in advance. Local flood warnings are issued too, enabling residents of places such as Richmond to anticipate water spilling across the towpath and up to their front gates.

"We're modelling what is going to happen and what operations might be required to manage the water at different points along the river," Batchelor explains. "If the level is going to be anything higher than 450mm from the top of the wall in the centre of London, then we will shut the barrier."

Without it, London would get its feet wet and much worse. Recorded history of the Thames banks bursting goes back a long way. In December 1663 Samuel Pepys recorded "the greatest tide that was ever remembered in England" and "all White Hall having been drowned, of which there was great discourse". The last major flood affecting central London occurred in January 1928, when defences in Chelsea and Victoria were overwhelmed at dead of night, with a section opposite the Tate Gallery in Millbank collapsing. Among the paintings damaged as a result were works by Turner, famous for his boiling seascapes.

Parliament and the Tower were swamped too, as were the then fairly new Blackwall and Rotherhithe tunnels and, most tragically, the basement homes of some of the capital's poorest residents, largely in Southwark and on the Westminster side of Lambeth Bridge. Fourteen people drowned and thousands had to leave their homes. It occurred thanks to a perfect combination of storms, with a tidal surge meeting a doubling of inflow from the west caused by heavy rain and snow thawing in the Cotswolds, where the Thames has its source.

The catalyst for the barrier's construction was the North Sea flood disaster of winter 1953, when a huge tide saw sea levels rise by more than 18 feet and overwhelm coastal defences in Scotland, Belgium and, most horrifically, the Netherlands where 1,836 lives were claimed.

In eastern England there were 307 fatalities, as large parts of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were washed over. Canvey Island's sea walls collapsed, leading to 58 of those deaths, and a further 35 perished at Jaywick in Clacton. The waters coursed upstream through the then busy docks, swamping factories, gasworks and electricity generating stations from Tilbury all the way to the East End, where the Thames spilled on to the streets of West Ham and into 1,000 homes. The centre of London just about escaped, but there are photographs of people in Richmond marooned on towpath benches. There were no warning systems. Victims were caught completely unawares.

Plans to build a barrier began soon after. The design for its rotating gates had been created by engineer Charles Draper, reportedly working from his parents' home in Wood Green and inspired by the domestic gas taps that were common at the time.

A civil engineer, Batchelor has worked on the barrier since joining its maintenance team in 1984, becoming its manager in 1999. He's a founder member of the International Network of Storm Surge Barriers, a group of highly specialised experts whose membership includes those responsible for protecting waterside cities as varied as Venice, St Petersburg and New Orleans. Batchelor explains that the Thames Barrier's technological evolution has followed tried-and-tested routes, with new elements only being introduced after they've proven reliable elsewhere. The current system earned its spurs in the North Sea oilfields.

Walking the warrens within the barriers is an education. Piers are connected by passageways built below the water. Pipes and bundles of cable run like friezes along the walls. Two metres of concrete separate you from the river overhead, though when a boat passes apparently its propellers can be heard. Up above, vast hunks of muscular, yellow-painted hydraulics stand ready to open and close the 10 gates.

The six in the deepest water lie flush with the riverbed when closed, to allow boats and shipping through. The widest four gates each span 61m of the river, whose width is 520m at that point, and weigh more than 3,000 tonnes each. Batchelor remains full of professional admiration: "This was on the drawing board in the 1960s, constructed in the 70s. Computer-aided design didn't exist then. It was put together from 13,000 pen-and-ink drawings."

The full effect of the barrier is the same as if the floodwalls along the Victoria Embankment were 3m higher. Without this line of defence, those walls would have to be built up accordingly, rather spoiling the view. A decision about building a new barrier is expected to be made in 2050. The present one is widely seen as a beacon of farsighted public investment - one it would be wise to learn from.

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Beyond the Thames Barrier: how safe is London from another major flood?

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London's 'at risk' list includes the Houses of Parliament, Canary Wharf, 86 railway and Tube stations, 16 hospitals and over half a million homes. And the Thames Barrier can't keep rising tides at bay forever

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When UN climate negotiators meet for summit talks this month, there will be a new figure on the table: 3C.

Until now, global efforts such as the Paris climate agreement have tried to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels. However, with latest projections pointing to an increase of 3.2C by 2100, these goals seem to be slipping out of reach.

Global temperature change

compared to pre-industrial levels

"[We] still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future," said Erik Solheim, the UN environment chief, ahead of the upcoming Bonn conference.

One of the biggest resulting threats to cities around the world is sea-level rise, caused by the expansion of water at higher temperatures and melting ice sheets on the north and south poles.

Scientists at the non-profit organisation Climate Central estimate that 275 million people worldwide live in areas that will eventually be flooded at 3C of global warming.

Asian cities will be worst affected

The regional impact of these changes is highly uneven, with four out of five people affected living in Asia.

Although sea levels will not rise instantaneously, the calculated increases will be "locked in" at a temperature rise of 3C, meaning they will be irreversible even if warming eventually slows down.

Osaka, Japan

5.2 million people affected

At the end of a month in which it has been battered by unseasonably late typhoons and relentless rain, Japan is already confronting the threat posed by climate change-induced flooding.

Image modelling shows that swaths of Osaka - the commercial heart of a region whose GDP is almost as big as that of the Netherlands - would disappear beneath the water in a 3C world, threatening the local economy and almost a third of the wider region's 19 million residents.

Millions of people live in the urban area surrounding Osaka. Sea-level rise will reshape densely and sparsely populated areas.

Osaka animated

As a result of global sea-level rise, storm surges and other factors, economists project that coastal flooding could put almost $1tn of Osaka's assets at risk by the 2070s, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"The costs of protecting cities from rising sea levels and storms are also likely to rise - as are the costs of repairing storm damage," it said. "Decisions we make today could have a profound impact on the security and culture of the people of this ancient city."

Like much of Japan, Osaka already has a network of seawalls and other coastal defences in place to combat tsunami - although their effectiveness was disputed in the aftermath of the 2011 triple disaster.

Osaka city authorities are investing in other infrastructure to mitigate the effects of flooding, but public education is also vital, according to Toshikazu Nakaaki of the Osaka municipal government's environment bureau.

"In the past our response was focused on reducing the causes of global warming, but given that climate change is inevitable, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are now discussing how to respond to the natural disasters that will follow," Nakaaki said.

"We anticipate that Osaka will be affected by natural disasters caused by climate change, but we have yet to establish exactly what might happen or how much financial damage they would cause.

"It's not that we expect sea levels to rise at some point in the future - they are already rising."

Keiko Kanai has long been aware that her home city is susceptible to natural disasters. "I'd heard that historically, tsunamis caused by earthquakes put many parts of Osaka underwater, and I knew that some parts of the world were at risk from rising sea levels," said Kanai, who teaches at a local university.

"But I didn't put two and two together. Until now I haven't given much thought to the idea that Osaka too could be engulfed by rising sea levels."

Kaori Akazawa, a nursing care consultant, said flooding was a consideration when she was deciding where in Osaka to live.

"When I moved here I talked to my colleagues about the risks," she said. "That's why I've always rented apartments on the fourth storey or higher.

"It's worrying, but I've never considered moving."
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Alexandria, Egypt

3 million people affected

On the Alexandria Corniche, waves slowly lap at a shoreline dotted with plastic chairs and umbrellas from the beachside cafes. Students perch on the steps of the imposing Alexandria library. But the same coastline that draws locals to its scenic vistas is threatening to slowly engulf the historic city as sea levels rise due to global warming.

The IPCC reported that Alexandria's beaches would be submerged even with a 0.5-metre sea-level rise, while 8 million people would be displaced by flooding in Alexandria and the Nile Delta if no protective measures are taken. A 3C world threatens far greater damage than that.

Yet for many residents, there is little public information to connect the increasingly chaotic weather and floods with climate change. "The vast majority of Alexandrians don't have access to knowledge, and that's what worries me. I don't expect the government to raise awareness of this problem until it's already happening," said 22-year-old student Kareem Mohammed.

"Everyone thinks we should act on this problem 50 or 80 years from now," agreed his friend, Hazem Hassan, a student in marine biology at the nearby Alexandria University.

Officials maintain that protective measures are being taken, but with little fanfare. "Egypt spends 700m EGP [£30m] annually to protect the north coast," said Dr Magdy Allam, head of the Arab Environmental Experts Union, who was previously part of the Egyptian environment ministry.

Allam cited the Mohammed Ali sea wall built in 1830 as a key protection, as well as the concrete blocks lining the shoreline designed to "detour flood water away from residential neighbourhoods". But critics say that this is far from enough given the scale of the problem.

"There are studies indicating that our city is one of many coastal human settlements around the world which will be partially submerged by 2070 if nothing is done," said Ahmed Hassan, of the Save Alexandria Initiative, a group that works to raise awareness of the effects of climate change on the city.
Ruth Michaelson in Alexandria
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1.8 million people affected

Residents of Brazil's postcard city have plenty of reasons to fear global warming - even if they don't quite know it. According to Climate Central, a temperature rise of 3C would cause flooding of not just Rio's famous beaches such as Copacabana and its waterfront domestic airport, but also inland areas of the Barra de Tijuca neighbourhood, where last year's Olympic Games were held.

Barra is built around a network of heavily polluted lagoons that empty into the sea. The prospect of it being underwater alarmed resident Sueli Gonçalves, 46, who runs pensioners' health projects, as she and her 23-year-old son Yuri Sanchez carried their shopping past the Olympic Park.

"My God. Oh Jesus," she said, with a nervous laugh. "I will leave here. I will go to the United States. To Canada."

The family knew about global warming but were unaware of the potential scale of the impact on their upscale neighbourhood of smart condominiums and a shopping mall.

"Nobody takes it seriously. People do not think long term," Gonçalves said.

Storm surges recently destroyed hundreds of metres of beachfront pavement overlooking the Macumba beach, a popular surfing spot on Rio's western fringes. Last year, heavy waves in another storm surge felled an elevated, clifftop cycle path between Leblon beach and Barra de Tijuca which had not been built to survive such high seas, killing two people.

Last year, Rio's city government and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro produced a study entitled Strategy for Adapting to Climate Change.

"The current challenge consists in deepening knowledge and monitoring of oceanic phenomena and the evolution of the sea bed and coast," a spokeswoman for the city's secretariat of the environment said in an email. An "adaption plan" for climate change produced with professors from the federal university suggested strategies to deal with vulnerabilities in areas such as transport, health and housing. But so far little has been done.

Nara Pinto, 38, who lives in the sprawling Rocinha favela and sells snacks on the pavement overlooking Copacabana beach, said the loss of Rio's famous beaches would cost a lot of jobs.

"The beach is a tourist point," she said. "What can be done to stop this?
Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Shanghai, China

17.5 million people affected

"Shanghai is completely gone - I'd have to move to Tibet!" says resident Wang Liubin, when he is shown projections for the city after 3C of global warming.

When it comes to flooding, the coastal city is one of the world's most vulnerable. Now one of the world's biggest ports, the former fishing village is bordered by the Yangtze river in the north and divided through the middle by the Huangpu river; the municipality involves several islands, two long coastlines, shipping ports, and miles of canals, rivers, and waterways.

In 2012, a report from a team of UK and Dutch scientists declared Shanghai the most vulnerable major city in the world to serious flooding, based on factors such as numbers of people living close to the coastline, time needed to recover from flooding, and measures to prevent floodwater. According to Climate Central projections, 17.5 million people could be displaced by rising waters if global temperatures increase by 3C.

Projections show the vast majority of the city could eventually be submerged in water, including much of the downtown area, landmarks such as the Lujiazui skyline and the historical Bund, both airports, and the entirety of its outlying Chongming Island.

Since 2012, the government has been making steady inroads to tackle the threat, including building China's largest deepwater drainage system beneath the Suzhou Creek waterway, made up of 15km of pipes to drain rainwater across a 58 sq km area. It has also rolled out a 40bn yuan (£5bn) River Flood Discharge project which will stretch for 120km between Lake Taihu and the Huangpu river to try and mitigate the risk of the upstream lake flooding.

Flood prevention walls are being built along the waterfront - in places so high the river is blocked from view - and 200km more are promised across the city's outlying districts. Flood controls have been put in place along the famous Bund waterfront, where the walkway has been raised to help counter a flood risk, as well as a series of water controls and dams.
Helen Roxburgh in Shanghai
Miami, US

2.7 million people affected

Few other cities in the world have as much to lose from rising sea levels as Miami, and the alarm bells sound ever louder with each successive " king tide " that overwhelms coastal defences and sends knee-deep seawater coursing through downtown streets.

Locals consider this the "new normal" in the biggest city of Florida's largest metropolitan area, which would simply cease to exist with a 3C temperature rise. Even at 2C, forecasts show almost the entire bottom third of Florida - the area south of Lake Okeechobee currently home to more than 7 million people - submerged, with grim projections for the rest of the state in a little more than half a century. In Miami-Dade county alone, almost $15bn of coastal property is at risk of flooding in just the next 15 years.

A sense of urgency is evident at city hall, where commissioners are asking voters to approve a "Miami Forever" bond in the November ballot that includes $192m for upgrading pump stations, improving drainage and raising sea walls.

"We have a really precious city that many people love and are willing to invest in right now, but it's going to take some funds to protect it," said Ken Russell, the city commission's vice-chair.

Last year, the city of Miami appointed sea-rise expert Jane Gilbert into the newly created role of chief resilience officer with instructions for a robust stormwater management plan that also looks at storm surge, such as that from Hurricane Irma in September which brought significant flooding to downtown Brickell and neighbouring Coconut Grove.

Proposals include elevating roads and even abandoning neighbourhoods to the water to protect others.

"We need universal recognition that we're all in this together, to protect this amazing global city that we've become," she said.

Natalia Ortiz, who grew up in Miami, fears the future. "It's very scary," said Ortiz, who works with Cleo, a climate change advocacy group. "My son is 11 and my daughter is nine, so they're young but I think about their future, will they be able to raise their children in Miami the way I had the luxury of raising mine?"
Richard Luscombe in Miami Flood maps were created using sea-level rise estimates from Climate Central and digital elevation data. Population estimates refer to urban agglomerations, which comprise the built-up area of a city and the suburbs linked with it. Maps include OpenStreetMap data. Temperature projections are based on University of Washington emissions modelling and UN warming estimates. Trajectories have been updated to match latest temperatures as recorded by the Met Office Hadley Centre.

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cop 23: bonn climate change conference 2017

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The three-degree world: cities that will be drowned by global warming

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When UN climate negotiators meet for summit talks this month, there will be a new figure on the table: 3C. Until now, global efforts such as the Paris climate agreement have tried to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels.

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Latin cities

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In 1980, geographers Ernest Griffin and Larry Ford developed a generalized model to describe the structure of cities in Latin America after concluding that the organization of many cities in that region grew following certain patterns. Their general model ( diagrammed here) claims that Latin American cities are built up around a core central business district (CBD). Out of that district comes a commercial spine that is surrounded by elite housing. These areas are then surrounded by three concentric zones of housing that decrease in quality as one moves away from the CBD.

Background and Development of Latin American City Structure

As many Latin American Cities began to grow and develop during colonial times, their organization was mandated by a set of laws called the Laws of the Indies. These were a set of laws issued by Spain to regulate the social, political, and economic structure of its colonies outside of Europe. These laws "mandated everything from treatment of the Indigenous people to the width of the streets."

In terms of city structure, the Laws of the Indies required that colonial cities have a grid pattern built around a central plaza. Blocks near the plaza were for residential development for the city's elite. The streets and development farther from the central plaza were then developed for those with less social and economic status.

As these cities later began to grow and the Laws of the Indies no longer applied, this grid pattern worked only in areas with slow development and minimal industrialization. In faster growing cities this central area became built up as a central business district (CBD). These areas were the economic and administrative cores of the cities but they did not expand much prior to the 1930s.

In the mid- to late 20th century the CBD began to further expand and the organization of the colonial cities of Latin America was mostly demolished and the "stable central plaza became the node for the evolution of an Anglo-American styled CBD." As the cities continued to grow, various industrial activities built up around the CBD because of a lack of infrastructure father away. This resulted in a mix of business, industry, and homes for the wealthy near the CBD.

Around this same time, Latin American cities also experienced in-migration from the countryside and high birth rates as the poor tried to move closer to cities for work. This resulted in the development of squatter settlements on the edge of many cities. Because these were are on the periphery of the cities they were also the least developed. Over time, however, these neighborhoods became more stable and gradually obtained more infrastructure.

Model of Latin American City Structure

In looking at these developmental patterns of Latin American cities, Griffin and Ford developed a model to describe their structure that can be applied to almost all major cities in Latin America. This model shows that most cities have a central business district, one dominant elite residential sector, and a commercial spine. These areas are then surrounded by a series of concentric zones that decrease in residential quality farther from the CBD.

Central Business District

The center of all Latin American cities is the central business district. These areas are home to the best employment opportunities and they are the commercial and entertainment hubs for the city. They are also very well developed in terms of infrastructure and most have many modes of public transportation so that people can easily get into and out of them.

Spine and Elite Residential Sector

After the CBD the next most dominant part of Latin American cities is the commercial spine that is surrounded by residential developments for the most elite and wealthy people in the city. The spine itself is considered an extension of the CBD and it is home to many commercial and industrial applications. The elite residential sector is where nearly all of the city's professionally built houses are and the upper class and upper middle class live in these regions. In many cases, these areas also have large tree-lined boulevards, golf courses, museums, restaurants, parks, theaters, and zoos. Land use planning and zoning are also very strict in these areas.

Zone of Maturity

The zone of maturity is located around the CBD and is considered an inner city location. These areas have better-constructed homes and in many cities, these areas have middle-income residents who filtered in after the upper class residents moved out of the inner city and into the elite residential sector. These areas have a fully developed infrastructure.

Zone of in Situ Accretion

The zone of in situ accretion is a transitional area for Latin American cities that is between the zone of maturity and the zone of peripheral squatter settlements. The homes are of modest qualities that vary widely in size, type, and quality of materials. These areas look like they are in a "constant state of on-going construction" and homes are unfinished. Infrastructure such as roads and electricity is only completed in some areas.

Zone of Peripheral Squatter Settlements

The zone of peripheral squatter settlements is located on the edge of Latin American cities and it is where the poorest people in the cities live. These areas have virtually no infrastructure and many homes are built by their residents using whatever materials they can find. Older peripheral squatter settlements are better developed as residents often continually work to improve the areas, while newer settlements are just starting.

Age Differences in Latin American City Structure

Like the age differences present in the zone of peripheral squatter settlements age differences are important in the overall structure of Latin American cities as well. In older cities with slow population growth, the zone of maturity is often larger and the cities appear more organized than younger cities with very fast population growth. As a result, the "size of each zone is a function of the age of the city and of the rate of population growth in relation to the economic capacity of the city to absorb effectively additional residents and to extend public services."

Revised Model of Latin American City Structure

In 1996 Larry Ford presented a revised model of Latin American city structure after further development in the cities made them more complicated than the 1980 general model showed. His revised model (diagrammed here) incorporated six changes to the original zones. The changes are as follows:

1) The new central city should be divided into a CBD and a Market. This change shows that many cities now have offices, hotels, and retail structures in their downtowns as well as their original CBDs.

2) The spine and elite residential sector now have a mall or edge city at the end to provide goods and services to those in the elite residential sector.

3) Many Latin American cities now have separate industrial sectors and industrial parks that are outside of the CBD.

4) Malls, edge cities, and industrial parks are connected in many Latin American cities by a periferico or ring highway so that residents and workers can travel between them easier.

5) Many Latin American cities now have middle class housing tracts that are located close to the elite housing sector and the periferico.

6) Some Latin American cities are also undergoing gentrification to protect historical landscapes. These areas are often located in the zone of maturity near the CBD and the elite sector.

This revised model of Latin American city structure still takes into account the original model but it allows for new the development and changes that constantly occur in the rapidly growing Latin American region.

Resources and Further Reading

Ford, Larry R. "A New and Improved Model of Latin American City Structure." Geographical Review, vol. 86, no.3, 1996.

Griffin, Ernest and Ford, Larry. "A Model of Latin American City Structure." Geographical Review, vol. 70, no. 4, 1980.

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Latin American City Structure Influenced by Colonial Environment

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In 1980, geographers Ernest Griffin and Larry Ford developed a generalized model to describe the structure of cities in Latin America after concluding that the organization of many cities in that region grew following certain patterns. Their general model ( diagrammed here) claims that Latin American cities are built up around a core central business district (CBD).

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Urban planning

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Adaption to sea level rise

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According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes (IPCC 2001:388). Adaptation refers to adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities (IPCC 2001:365). For the Maldives, adaptation is a multi-dimensional goal that aims to increase resilience of the vulnerable systems against climate hazards and risks to achieve sustainable development outcomes. Maldives is an archipelago of 25 lowlying coral atolls located in a north to south direction on the Laccadives-Chagos submarine ridge in the Indian Ocean. This chain is 860km long and the width varies between 80 to 120km. There are 1190 small tropical islands out of which 358 islands are being currently utilized mainly for human settlements, infrastructure and economic activities. The largest island is Gan in Laamu Atoll which is barely 6km. Maldives has a tropical monsoon climate. The south-west monsoon is from May to November and the north-east monsoon is from January to March. Daily temperature varies between 31 C and 23 C. The mean daily maximum temperature is 30.4 C and the mean daily minimum temperature is 25.7 C. Humidity ranges from 73 to 85% (MEC, 2004; Meteorology, 2006).

A. Adaptation Needs and Priorities

Maldives is an archipelago of 25 low-lying coral atolls located in the Indian Ocean southwest of the Indian subcontinent. The country's climate is characterized as "tropical monsoon," with monsoons occurring from May to November and from January to March (MEEW, 2007). Climate change is an existential threat to the small coral islands that make up the Maldives. Over 80 per cent of the land area of Maldives is less than one meter above mean sea level; as such, a sea level rise of even a meter would cause the loss of the entire land area of Maldives (MHAHE, 2001). In the near term, the islands of the Maldives are very vulnerable to inundation and gradual sea level rise will aggravate the existing problem of beach erosion; in the recent past, 62 per cent of all inhabited islands and 45 per cent of tourist resorts reported severe beach erosion (Shaig, 2006). Rising sea levels also threaten the scarce fresh water resources of Maldives. Salt water intrusion is gradually encroaching in to the islands' small pockets or 'lenses' of fresh water underground. The coral reefs surrounding the Maldives are at risk due to gradual warming of sea water (in addition to pollution from man-made sources). Given that these reefs support both the country's tourism and fisheries industries upon which the people depend almost exclusively, climate change is a profound threat to its very economic base.

Maldives' National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) identifies the following key areas of climate change related vulnerabilities: land, beach and human settlements; critical infrastructure; tourism; fisheries; human health; water resources; agriculture and food security; and coral reef biodiversity (MEEF, 2007).

B. National Level Policies and Strategic Documents

Maldives completed its Initial National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2001. In addition to identifying key vulnerabilities, this report also proposed 12 high-priority adaptation and mitigation projects, clearly recognized the finance gap and indicated that adaptation action would have to be carried out using external resources.

As a follow up, Maldives initiated its NAPA process in 2004. Progress towards it completion was immediately interrupted in December 2004 by the Indian Ocean tsunami. This single event changed Maldives' status from a developing country back to a least developed country (LDC) and exposed how vulnerable this small country is to natural calamities. Maldives eventually completed the NAPA in 2007.

Recommendations made in Maldives' NAPA are based on a systematic review of the risk-vulnerability context. Within it, adaptation is seen as "a multi-dimensional goal that aims to increase resilience of the vulnerable systems against climate hazards and risks to achieve sustainable development outcomes" (MEEW, 2007). After consultations with the stakeholder groups and reviewing expert assessments, Maldives came up with 12 priority adaptation projects, as summarized in Table 3. The NAPA envisioned that implementation of the adaptation activities would be overseen by the National Commission for Protection of the Environment. A special interagency task force would ensure the respective agencies of the government mobilize international financial assistance and allocate public financing to the priority project profiles in the NAPA.

In 2011, Maldives announced it had signed the world's first Strategic National Action Plan that integrates disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The policy was formulated using broad consultations with key sectors including housing, construction, environment and health, and focuses on governance and decentralization as key to the success of risk reduction and adaptation. The policy is viewed as a landmark initiative within the disaster risk reduction and adaptation communities.

It may be mentioned that Maldives is a very active and visible player in the international climate conferences and negotiation meetings. And, even though its own greenhouse gas emissions are insignificant, Maldives has declared a national ambition to become a carbon neutral country by 2020.

C. Current Adaptation Action

Compared to other South Asia countries, the number of discrete adaptation projects underway in Maldives appears to be low, although each addresses Maldives' adaptation priorities as identified though its national policies. One project, "Integration of Climate Change risks into the Maldives Safer Island

Development Program," explicitly addressing a priority need identified in Maldives' NAPA. In addition, a Climate Trust Fund was established in December 2009 by the European Union and the World Bank for the Maldives. It aims to build a climate resilient economy through various mitigation and adaptation activities. The majority of projects are focused on policy formulation and integration, although the areas risk reduction, coastal zones, water, forestry and meteorology are also being addressed. Funders of these projects include the Australia, European Commission, French Global Environment Fund, Germany, the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), Norway, Sweden, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Bank.

D. Proposed Adaptation Action

Maldives identifies 12 priority adaptation actions in its NAPA, one of which is currently receiving funding through the LDCF: "Integration of future climate change scenarios into the Safer Island Strategy." In addition, the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) is currently considering funding for an additional project that may address NAPA priorities. The majority of these proposed adaptation actions focus on risk reduction in coastal zones, as well as the building of infrastructure to reduce the vulnerability of coastal populations. Proposed project activities also address the areas of health, tourism, water, agriculture, nature and fisheries.

Publication Islam, Faisal; Hove, Hilary; Parry, Jo-Ellen. (2011) "Review of Current and Planned Adaptation Action: South Asia." Adaptation Patnership/International Institute for Sustainable Development, pp.108-118. Additional References
Ministry of Environment, Energy and Water [MEEW] (2007). National Adaptation Programme of Action: The Republic of Maldives. Retrieved

Ministry of Home Affairs, Housing and Environment [MHAHE] (2001). First National Communication of the Republic of Maldives. Retrieved

Project Under Implementation

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According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes (IPCC 2001:388).

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Video

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An enormous glacier the size of Florida may be on the brink of melting so quickly it could cause catastrophic global sea level rises, scientists have warned.

While the climate crisis has seen temperatures soar and rapidly reduce ice levels in the Arctic, down in the Antarctic, far larger ice sheets containing much more water are now believed to be at significant risk of collapse, despite previously being considered stable.

The Thwaites Glacier is one of five recently identified unstable Antarctic glaciers which have doubled their rate of ice loss in just six years.

Covering 70,000 square miles, it is likely to accelerate its flow into the ocean, a new study into Antarctic ice sheet stability has suggested.

Once it passes a tipping point, it will become an unstoppable process which could raise sea levels at a much higher rate than previously estimated, r esearchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the University of Washington said after using computer models to forecast how the glacier's instability could affect the rate of ice it sheds.

All of the models pointed towards the glacier reaching a tipping point and the ice sheet's subsequent collapse, they said.

In the worst-case scenario the ice from the Thwaites Glacier alone could raise global sea levels by as much as half a metre (20 inches) in as little as 150 years.

The team warned that once a tipping point is reached, even if global temperatures were reduced, the glacier's flow into the sea would already be unstoppable.

"If you trigger this instability, you don't need to continue to force the ice sheet by cranking up temperatures. It will keep going by itself, and that's the worry," said the study's leader Alex Robel, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

"Climate variations will still be important after that tipping point because they will determine how fast the ice will move."

Nasa scientist Helene Seroussi added: "After reaching the tipping point, Thwaites Glacier could lose all of its ice in a period of 150 years. That would make for a sea level rise of about half a metre (1.64 feet)."

For comparison, current sea level is 20cm (nearly 8 inches) above pre-global warming levels and is blamed for increased coastal flooding.

For about 2,000 years until the late 1800s, global sea levels remained almost static with small fluctuations, but then it began to climb, according to the Smithsonian Institution.

The annual rate of sea level rise has roughly doubled since 1990.

The extent of the instability of the Antarctic ice sheet is difficult to study, but the computer models predicting its future collapse provide problems for forecasters and climate modelling teams as it offers a broad range of potential scenarios.

This is particularly relevant to the challenge of engineering against flood dangers.

"You want to engineer critical infrastructure to be resistant against the upper bound of potential sea level scenarios a hundred years from now," Dr Robel said. "It can mean building your water treatment plants and nuclear reactors for the absolute worst-case scenario, which could be two or three feet of sea level rise from Thwaites Glacier alone, so it's a huge difference."

Antarctica holds vast quantities of ice - around 90 per cent of all ice in the world - and unlike in the Arctic, most of the ice is out of the water and on land. The average thickness of the ice is 1.6 miles deep. At its thickest point the ice sheet is almost three miles deep.

As a result the collapse of its ice sheets presents more serious future scenarios for sea level rise - while in the Arctic, 90 per cent of an iceberg's mass is already underwater. When its ice melts, the volume shrinks, resulting in little change in sea level.

The instability beneath the Thwaites Glacier is thought to be related to the topography of the area where the ice sheet meets the sea.

The "grounding line", where the bottom of the ice sheet rests on the sea floor can retreat beneath the glacier due to warming ocean water hollowing out the ice.

In deeper areas, the ice over the sea floor can move faster due to the water giving it more lift, and this can speed up the movement of the glacier.

"Once ice is past the grounding line and just over water, it's contributing to sea level because buoyancy is holding it up more than it was," Dr Robel said. "Ice flows out into the floating ice shelf and melts or breaks off as icebergs."

Dr Seroussi added: "The process becomes self-perpetuating."

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Enormous Antarctic glacier on brink of collapse could raise sea levels by half a metre

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An enormous glacier the size of Florida may be on the brink of melting so quickly it could cause catastrophic global sea level rises, scientists have warned. While the climate crisis has seen temperatures soar and rapidly reduce ice levels in the Arctic, down in the Antarctic, far larger ice sheets containing much more water are now believed to be at significant risk of collapse, despite previously being considered stable.

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Sea-level change has been a feature on Earth for billions of years, and it has important implications for coastal processes and both erosional and depositional features. There are three main mechanisms of sea-level change, as described below.

Eustatic sea-level changes are global sea-level changes related either to changes in the volume of glacial ice on land or to changes in the shape of the sea floor caused by plate tectonic processes. For example, changes in the rate of mid-ocean spreading will change the shape of the sea floor near the ridges, and this affects sea level.

Over the past 20,000 years, there has been approximately 125 m of eustatic sea-level rise due to glacial melting. Most of that took place between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago during the major melting phase of the North American and Eurasian Ice Sheets (Figure 17.25). At around 7,500 years ago, the rate of glacial melting and sea-level rise decreased dramatically, and since that time, the average rate has been in the order of 0.7 mm/year. Anthropogenic climate change led to accelerating sea-level rise starting around 1870. Since that time, the average rate has been 1.1 mm/year, but it has been gradually increasing. Since 1992, the average rate has been 3.2 mm/year.

Isostatic sea-level changes are local changes caused by subsidence or uplift of the crust related either to changes in the amount of ice on the land, or to growth or erosion of mountains.

Almost all of Canada and parts of the northern United States were covered in thick ice sheets at the peak of the last glaciation. Following the melting of this ice, there has been an isostatic rebound of continental crust in many areas. This ranges from several hundred metres of rebound in the central part of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (around Hudson Bay) to 100 m to 200 m in the peripheral parts of the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets - in places such as Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of B.C. In other words, although global sea level was about 130 m lower during the last glaciation, the glaciated regions were depressed at least that much in most places, and more than that in places where the ice was thickest.

There is evidence of isostatic rebound along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, where a number of streams enter the ocean as 5 m high waterfalls, as shown in Figure 17.26.

Tectonic sea-level changes are local changes caused by tectonic processes. The subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate beneath British Columbia is creating tectonic uplift (about 1 mm/year) along the western edge of Vancouver Island, although much of this uplift is likely to be reversed when the next large subduction-zone earthquake strikes.

Coastlines in areas where there has been net sea-level rise in the geologically recent past are commonly characterized by estuaries and fiords. Howe Sound, north of Vancouver, is an example of a fiord (Figure 17.27). This valley was filled with ice during the last glaciation, and there has been a net rise in sea level here since that time. Coastlines in areas where there has been net sea-level drop in the geologically recent past are characterized by uplifted wave-cut platforms (or stream valleys as shown in Figure 17.26). Uplifted beach lines are another product of relative sea-level drop, although these are difficult to recognize in areas with vigorous vegetation. They are relatively common in Canada's far north.

Exercise 17.4 A Holocene Uplifted Shore
The blue-grey sediments in the photo contain marine fossils of early Holocene age (~12,500 years ago). Explain the role that melting ice might have played in raising this material 60 m above sea level. Is this change a result of isostatic or eustatic relative sea-level change?

Early Holocene marine sediments at 60 m elevation on Gabriola Island, B.C. [SE]

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Sea-level change has been a feature on Earth for billions of years, and it has important implications for coastal processes and both erosional and depositional features. There are three main mechanisms of sea-level change, as described below.

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Things aren't always what they seem on the surface. Looking at the area between mainland Europe and the eastern coast of Great Britain, you probably wouldn't guess it had been anything other than a great expanse of ocean water. But roughly 12,000 years ago, as the last major ice age was reaching its end, the area was very different. Instead of the North Sea, the area was a series of gently sloping hills, marshland, heavily wooded valleys, and swampy lagoons: Doggerland.

Mesolithic people populated Doggerland. Archaeologists and anthropologists say the Doggerlanders were hunter-gatherers who migrated with the seasons, fishing, hunting, and gathering food such as hazelnuts and berries.

Over time, the Doggerlanders were slowly flooded out of their seasonal hunting grounds. Water previously locked away in glaciers and ice sheets began to melt, drowning Doggerland. Around 6,000 years ago, the Mesolithic people were forced onto higher ground in what is today England and the Netherlands.

Evidence of Doggerlanders' nomadic presence can be found embedded in the seafloor, where modern fishermen often find ancient bones and tools that date to about 9,000 years ago. These artifacts brought Doggerland's submerged history to the attention of British and Dutch archaeologist s and paleontologists.

Using sophisticated seismic survey data acquired mainly by oil companies drilling in the North Sea, the scientists have been able to reconstruct a digital model of nearly 46,620 square kilometers (18,000 square miles) of what Doggerland looked like before it was flooded.

Those studying the Doggerland area are finding that the climate change faced by Mesolithic people is analogous to our own. Mesolithic peoples were forced out of Doggerland by rising water that engulfed their low-lying settlements. Climate scientists say that a similar situation could affect the billions of people who live within 60 kilometers (37 miles) of a shoreline today, if polar ice caps continue to melt at an accelerated pace.

The story of the Mesolithic people and their home of Doggerland are cautionary tales for the consequences of a rapidly rising sea level. Glacial melt forced the Mesolithic people out of their homes and now Doggerland, like the fabled Atlantis, is just a sunken and mostly forgotten Stone Age culture, its only evidence being decayed artifacts and fossils of its people.

When Doggerland was being flooded, sea level rise was as much as 1-2 meters (3-6 feet) a century.

The seafloor of the North Sea preserved many artifacts of Mesolithic people, including perfect sets of footprints left by the nomadic tribes, some containing up to 39 perfectly preserved prints.

Those studying Doggerland say many of the sites where they have found artifacts were located on steep ancient river banks, which the Dutch call De Stekels (the Spines).

Credits

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Writer

Benjamin Kessler

Editors

Caryl-Sue Micalizio, National Geographic Society
Sean P. O'Connor

Last Updated

Dec. 1, 2012

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When Doggerland was being flooded, sea level rise was as much as 1-2 meters (3-6 feet) a century.

The seafloor of the North Sea preserved many artifacts of Mesolithic people, including perfect sets of footprints left by the nomadic tribes, some containing up to 39 perfectly preserved prints.

Those studying Doggerland say many of the sites where they have found artifacts were located on steep ancient river banks, which the Dutch call De Stekels (the Spines).

Writer

Benjamin Kessler

Editors

Caryl-Sue Micalizio, National Geographic Society
Sean P. O'Connor

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Things aren't always what they seem on the surface. Looking at the area between mainland Europe and the eastern coast of Great Britain, you probably wouldn't guess it had been anything other than a great expanse of ocean water. But roughly 12,000 years ago, as the last major ice age was reaching its end, the area was very different.

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Formation and succession

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&nbsp

Description

Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

This video and its companion, created in collaboration with the University of Derby, look at the physical geography of sand dunes, using the case study of Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve:
Sediment cells * Sediment deposition * Sand dune formation * Embryo dunes * Fore dunes * Yellow dunes * Grey dunes * Dune heath (climax)
Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Howard Fox, Toby Tonkin, Sian Davies-Vollum, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker

Videography by: Liam Matthews, Rob Parker, Toby Tonkin
Thank you to Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve for enabling us to film this video. School groups wishing to visit this site can do so by first contacting the National Nature Reserve Office:

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Video: Sand dunes: formation and succession

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This is Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve on the northwest corner of the Wash in Lincolnshire. It's incredible to think that this entire landscape has formed as result of deposition in just a few hundred years. Gibraltar Point lies at the southern end of a sediment cell that stretches from here all the way to Flamborough Head, 116 kilometres to the north.