Burning of biomass contributes a significant amount of greenhouses gases to the atmosphere, which in turn influences regional air quality and global climate. Since the advent of humans, there has been a significant increase in the amount of biomass burning, particularly after the industrial revolution. What might not be immediately obvious is that, (naturally occurring) fires also play a part in e ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Do roads mean landslides are more likely?
The Hvalsnes landslide, Eastern Iceland. Credit: Ragnar Sigurdsson (arctic-images.com; distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)
Landslides have been in the news frequently over the past 12 months or so. It’s not surprising considering their devastating consequences and potential impact on nearby communities. Data collected by Dave Petley in his Landslide Blog shows that from January to July 2014 alone, there were 222 landslides that caused loss of life, resulting in 1466 deaths. A recent paper, in the journal Natural Hazar ...[Read More]
When Astronomy Gets Closer to Home: Why space weather outreach is important and how to give it impact
When the public think about natural hazards, space weather is not the first thing to come to mind. Yet, though uncommon, extreme space weather events can have an economic impact similar to that of large floods or earthquakes. Although there have been efforts across various sectors of society to communicate this topic, many people are still quite confused about it, having only a limited understandi ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Is it possible to quantify the effect of natural emissions on climate?
Aerosols over hurricane Irene, (Credit: Nir Benmoshe, via imaggeo.egu.eu).
The air we breathe is full of tiny particles that can have a big impact on our climate. Industrial activities have greatly increased the number of these particles, cooling the climate and potentially offsetting some of the warming due to greenhouse gases. In this post Kirsty Pringle introduces new research that suggests that it might not be possible to quantify the effect of industrial emissions o ...[Read More]