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How can we increase our understanding of the Earth's climate and oceans past, present and future? Join us on a voyage of discovery into the deep oceans to find out about bi-polar seaweed and other clever creatures that help us to answer these questions. You'll also be able to find out how the Earth's coastlines are changing.
Seashells are Thermometers
Professor Maggie Cusack
(Professor of Biomineralisation)
Recent records of sea temperatures indicate that our planet is warming. Records of climate are little more than 100 years old so how do we find out how Earth’s climate has changed in the past? One approach is to use information stored in marine shells as they record water temperature as they grow in the ocean. Some groups of marine shelled-organisms go back 550 million years and are a rich source of climate information. Maggie will describe how we determine which shells record temperatures accurately and which can be used as thermometers to tell us how sea temperatures have changed in the past
Bi-Polar Seaweeds
Dr. Kathryn Schoenrock
(Research Associate in Marine Global Change)
The role of algae in the polar marine environments is complex. Polar seaweeds control the structure and function of marine communities in the Arctic and Antarctic in two ways: physically and chemically. Thus the polar seaweeds are a critical component of these habitats, and polar phycology contributes to our understanding of past, present, and future polar marine environments.
What it means to heat the ocean by 150 zettajoules and other Climate Change Facts
Dr Jaime Toney
(Senior Lecturer in Organic Geochemistry)
Perspectives on why 99% of climatologists agree that modern climate change is human-made and the latest facts, figures and projections for a rapidly changing world.
Oh! Where have all the beaches gone?
Dr Jim Hansom
(Reader in Geography, University of Glasgow)
Scottish shores are moving inexorably landwards due to erosion and flooding driven by increases in sea level and storm impact along with dwindling coastal sediment supply. Our attempts at adaptation have been ineffectual and the scale and pace of adaptive provision needs to move up a gear if we are to cope with the changes in natural processes that are already under way. The threats are considerable, but so too are the opportunities if we get it right. Planning needs to get future-proofed and smart. The timing and choices are ours but it is increasingly certain that we will be forced to adapt.
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