The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place from 31 October to 12 November 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland. With the exception of 2020, COPs are held annually and provide a space for world leaders to negotiate climate policies, targets, and the next steps that need to be take to reduce global emissions. ...[Read More]
Cassiopeia with Milky Way in the background on September 9th, 2020. The image was taken in north-eastern state of Germany (Mecklenburg – Lower Pomerania) near the Town of Jarmen. The region has little light pollution and the evening had a clear sky (sky quality measure was 21.15). The image was taken at about 22:00 hrs local time. An EOS 1100D with a 50/1.6 lens was used. The exposure time w ...[Read More]
Space weather is a ubiquitous, but little known, natural hazard. Though not as tangible as a volcanic eruption, storm or tsunami wave, space weather has the potenital to cause huge economic losses across the globe. In Europe alone, the interaction of solar wind with our planet’s magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere, could lead to disrutions to space-based telecommunications, broadcasti ...[Read More]
Hello Josh, thankyou for talking with us! Before we take off, could you tell us a little about yourself and your research? Hi Simon, thanks for inviting me! I’m a PhD student at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) and Uppsala University, just started my third year. My research is focused on Saturn’s ionosphere (the region of the upper atmosphere with a significant amount of ch ...[Read More]
The International Space Station, a human-made, life-supporting habitat, and a most complex and unique scientific laboratory, orbits the Earth in only 90 minutes – that is 16 times a day! Even so, only occasionally, we earthlings have the privilege of seeing it’s dark outline against the much brighter surfaces of the Sun or Moon. Timing is of crucial importance if you want to see this, ...[Read More]
Working on the sea ice can be quite exhausting. Scientists face cold temperatures and wind, constantly scanning for polar bears, while trying to squeeze valuable data out of frozen instruments. At the end of the day you might have not found what you wanted, but every single bit of information brought back truly helps in understanding our complex World. Over 12 months, 442 experts worked in ...[Read More]
Chacaltaya ski hut, Bolivian Andes, 5400 m above sea level. The world’s former highest ski resort where the Chacaltaya glacier once stood, situated in the Cordillera Real, close to La Paz. Chacaltaya vanished in 2009, six years earlier than scientists had predicted. The disappearance of the glacier is a sign of what to come for the glaciers of the Andes, with glacier retreat and disappearanc ...[Read More]
Hi Mengze, thank you for spending your time with us today. Could you tell our readers a little about yourself? Hi Simon, thanks for the interview today. I’m happy to tell more about myself. I was born in China, lived and studied there until I finished my Bachelor’s study. After that I went to Germany for Master’s and doctoral degrees. Last year I have finished my PhD at Max Planck Institute for Ch ...[Read More]
This photo was taken standing in the middle of Arasbârân Forest, a beautiful virgin forest in Kaleybar, East Azerbaijan province, Iran. In Autumn and Spring, it gets extremely rainy around this area, thus begins the flowing of ephemeral streams, like the one that is captured in this photo. Located between the Caspian Sea, Aras River and the Mediterranean region, this forest has got exceptional con ...[Read More]
In 1971 a group of environmental activists set sail from Canada to protest nuclear testing. With this journey the organization Greenpeace was born. 50 years old this year, Greenpeace and other organizations like it have seen environmental concerns move from the fringe to the mainstream, and eventually evolve into climate change activism. In 2009, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in ...[Read More]