2006 news

Professor Martin Wooster has been awarded £190,000 for a project entitled "Geostationary Observations of Biomass Burning for Improving Global Forecasting of Atmospheric State". As part of the "CARBOAFRICA" 2.5 Meuro, 15 partner project, Martin and Bruce have been awarded 130,000EURO.

EUMETSAT "FREEVAL - Validation and Use of SEVIRI Fire Radiative Power Products".

Martin Wooster has been awarded 50k euros for his contribution to this 6 partner project.

ESA "ECOFIRE-CCN - Global Fire Satellite Studies" Martin Wooster is contributing to this 2 partner consortium on a project with a total value of £250k.

Michael and Mark have been awarded (October 2006) a £430,000 grant entitled 'Human security and local governance: negotiating environmental risk management under rapid urbanisation in the Yucatan (Mexican Caribbean)'.

The project will examine different approaches to enhanced environmental security under conditions of rapid urbanisation, in a geographical zone (western Caribbean/Yucatan) made more vulnerable by climate perturbation (hurricanes and tropical storms).

The research will explore the links between the formal laws and institutionalised customs that structure relations between two competing visions of security, namely 'ecological modernisation' and 'endogenous livelihoods'.

Glenn and Hannah, in collaboration with colleagues at the Universities of Lancaster and Exeter, have been awarded (September 2006) a major research grant (£500,000) by the NERC as part of their FREE programme to undertake 'Uncertainty Assessments of Flood Inundation Impacts: Using spatial climate change scenarios to drive ensembles of distributed models for extremes'.

New research, led by Professor Glenn McGregor, analyses data from recent heatwaves and concludes that the risk of heat-related deaths is greater in urban areas, especially in London. The study identifies London's most vulnerable areas and concludes that predictions for climate change by 2080 mean than London is likely to be hit with more cloud-free days and more frequent periods of intense heat. The research was reported on the BBC News website on 25 August 2006.

This prestigious award was made to Michael at the World Congress of Sociology in Durban, South Africa (August 2006) for his contribution to Environmental Sociology.

David, Hannah and Florian have received a grant for £372,000 to research "Europeanizing flood forecasting and the geographies of risk & science in the EU".

'Population, City and Environment in Contemporary Mexico', Edited by Jose Luis Lezama and Jos B. Morelos from the Centre for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies El Colegio de Mexico had its international launch in the Department of Geography on 30 May from 18.00-20.00. The book was presented and discussed by John SimonsManaging Editor, Population Studies; Professor Nigel Harris, University of London and Mark Pelling, King's College London.

Professor Sue Grimmond's research programme includes new instrumentation to monitor atmospheric processes over central London. This programme was reported under the title London could soon have a network of scientific stations to monitor the great city's carbon "footprint" on the BBC News website on 25 May 2006.

Researchers monitoring fires across Africa can now calculate how much vegetation is going up in smoke as the fires burn, helping quantify air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Martin Wooster, of King's College London, said, ‘Before, we relied on burn ‘scars’ spotted after the fires had happened. Now, new instruments on satellites that orbit above fixed points on the Earth's surface (geostationary satellites), together with better analysis techniques, let us estimate how much vegetation a fire is burning up as frequently as every 15 minutes.

The new measures sense heat from the fires, and can feed information about smoke emissions into models of the atmosphere. This assists forecasts of where the smoke ends up—important because it can have dramatic effects on air quality. The amount of heat also indicates how much greenhouse gas a fire produces. Two fires may burn the same area, but the amount of fuel they consume per unit area, and so the amount of greenhouse gases they produce, can be quite different.

'The European Space Agency is already using the team's results to help decide what data a future satellite mission (part of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme) should collect, and EUMETSAT (operators of the geostationary satellite) is investigating how it can provide routine long-term data on fires and their contributions to atmospheric aerosols, greenhouse gases and climate.

Professor Rob Imrie has been awarded a grant of £85K by the AHRC for an 18 month project entitled 'The codification and regulation of architects' practices'.

Professors McGregor, Grimmond and Wooster have been awarded funding to explore ‘The Urban Heat Island in London’.

Dr David Green has been awarded £242,000 by the ESRC for a project on "Women Investors in England and Wales 1870-1930". The project is shared with co-partners at Queen Mary, the OU and Sheffield.