Wildfire is the single greatest terrestrial disturbance agent on Earth. Satellite data suggest that in an average year, wildfires burn a total area of around 3.5 million km2, an area around 15 times larger than the UK. While some of these fires are purposefully controlled or are manageable, and can have benefits for ecosystems and livelihoods, other fires burn uncontrollably, with sometimes devastating consequences for safety, livelihoods, wildlife and climate.
Category: Extreme weather
Summer temperatures 2018 – the ‘new normal’?
There can be no doubt that the summer of 2018 has been remarkable both in the UK and across the…
Feeling the heat? So is our economy!
Tarek Cheaib, former student on the Grantham Institute and Imperial College Business School MSc in Climate Change, Management and Finance,…
It’s a small world: How air pollution in Europe can affect rainfall in India
Grantham PhD student Dilshad Shawki explores the latest research unpicking the influence of human activity across the globe on the…
UK floods: An uncertain future calls for flexible plans
Filip Babovic (Department of Civil Engineering) (@filipbabovic) looks back on the record-breaking floods experienced in the UK last December, asking…
Why a debate over who should take responsibility for climate change’s impending humanitarian disaster is proving hard to solve at COP21
Dr Gabriele Messori, Imperial physics alumnus and climate scientist writes about the contentious issue of the loss and damage caused…
Video: Climate change and extreme weather
The AXA Futures event ‘Climate Change and Extreme Weather – How Do We Protect Communities at Risk?’ hosted by the…
Is climate change increasing the risk of armed conflict?
By Dr Flora Whitmarsh, Grantham Institute The recently published 2015 Global Peace Index, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, said…
Resilience to environmental hazards
This blog post by Malcom Graham, an SSCP DTP student, is part of a series on Responding to Environmental Change, an…
Moving from tactics to strategy: extreme weather, climate risks and the policy response
By Dr Flora MacTavish and Dr Simon Buckle In the press coverage of the recent floods, there has been a…