Is a global temperature target of 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels – as enshrined in the Paris Climate Change Agreement – really possible? Interviewed for a Nature Podcast on 21 April, Priestley Centre’s director Piers Forster is optimistic, although he admits the Paris negotiations caught scientists unawares. “It did indicate that we weren’t doing our job,”...
The University of Leeds commemorated the signing of a landmark global agreement on climate change on Friday 22 April – Earth Day – by planting apple trees on campus that will also bear fruit for a new centre for climate research. The planting, which was done by the Priestley International Centre for Climate, is part of...
Biomass burning from cook stoves and agricultural practices is having a profound effect on rainfall reduction in southern Africa. Results from global and regional modelling demonstrate a 20% to 30% decrease in precipitation during the dry season, with local black carbon and organic carbon aerosol emissions being the main cause. Levels of black carbon can increase...
The economic impact of the 2015 Boxing Day floods on the regional economy of Calderdale has been estimated at £170 million, with SMEs suffering double the losses of the previous winter floods in 2012 and some closing permanently. The figures, which show an average loss per firm of £47,000, representing around 12% of their annual turnover, were presented in...
Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre will work alongside those from the University of Leeds’ Priestley International Centre for Climate and eight other research organisations as part of a major new multidisciplinary research project to investigate decadal global warming trend variance. Over the last decade, a slowdown has been observed in the global warming of...