Climate: Past, Present & Future

Desert loess: formation, distribution, geoscientific value

Kamila Ryzner, Janina Nett and Christian Zeeden September 25, 2020

Image of desert loess from Tunisia, provided by Sascha Meszner, Maximilian Pachtmann and Georg Mettig (Institute for Geography, TU Dresden; Germany).

Loess is an aeolian (wind-driven) silty sediment covering over 10% of the Earth’s land surface; it occurs predominantly in the mid-latitudes. On a global scale, loess is among the most widespread unconsolidated sediments, and of crucial importance for agricultural regions where loess deposits are known to form fertile soils because of its ability to store water and retain nutrients. Loess is compr ...[Read More]

InterArctic project: understanding the interaction between artic environments and societies

Émilie Gauthier September 21, 2020

Figure 1. Synthesis figure of the InterArctic project.

The InterArctic project (Fig. 1) focuses on vulnerability, resilience and adaptation of northern societies facing global change. The current rapid warming of Arctic and Subarctic climates has already produced many changes in the social, economic and cultural behaviour of the populations inhabiting these regions and more changes are expected to come. In this context, looking at the past provides th ...[Read More]

Climate models and Bach’s unfinished fugue

Faranak Tootoonchi September 10, 2020

Illustration by: Roshanak Tootoonchi, M.Sc. Student in hydrology and water resources management, University of Tabriz, Iran.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s last work – Contrapunctus XIV – is an unfinished musical composition. For many years, scholars considered that this piece was left unfinished because of Bach’s deteriorating health in his final years and eventual death. However, researchers recently found evidence that Bach might have left this piece intentionally unfinished, as he thought that there was still room for impr ...[Read More]

Learning lessons from the past to inform the future

Dr Charles Williams August 21, 2020

1.5 m air temperature climatology differences, Pliocene simulation from the UK’s physical climate model, relative to the preindustrial era.

A fairly recent blog post here reiterated the compelling comparison between the current COVID-19 crisis and the ongoing climate emergency, focusing on extreme events such as hurricanes, heatwaves and severe rainfall-related flooding, all of which are likely to get worse as the climate warms (Langendijk & Osman 2020). This comparison has been made by us Climate Scientists since the COVI ...[Read More]