SEE Here School of Earth and Environment In this first issue: WELCOME to ‘SEE Here’ Celebrating Success: Key Publications, PhDs and Prizes Awarded Updates from the four research institutes: ICAS IGS IGT SRI Learning and Teaching update New Building Project: 3D images and cut-away artists impressions Meet our new staff Who works in the: Faculty Finance Office? Faculty Research Office? Calendar of events including seminars, meetings, parties, etc. Fun and Games Next Issue: Spring 09 Welcome to SEE Here! The 2008 / 09 academic year represents an exciting year for the School of Earth and Environment that will continue to bring many opportunities for all our staff and students. As with the new building, strong foundations for future growth have been laid with the School already securing a leading research profile, establishing successful programmes of study and growing evidence of an influence on science, society and policy.  A clearer statement of the School's future vision and strategy (http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/local/SEEstrategymapJuly08.pdf) has been developed through a series of consultations with staff and students, and actions are being developed from this to ensure the continued growth and success of the School in the years ahead. Effective internal and external communication is one of the key enablers that will help us to achieve the nine aims set out in our strategy so, we are developing a Communication Strategy to support and enhance the School Strategy. This will be discussed at the next Staff Meeting on Wednesday 10 December. ‘SEE Here’ forms a core element of the communication strategy as, each semester, it aims to highlight key activities from across the School, including research, learning and teaching, the building project, academic and social events and some fun and games. While predominantly an internal-facing publication, staff are welcome to reproduce the newsletter for external visitors who, we hope, will also find many items to be of interest! Andy Dougill, Piers Forster and Joanna Bowen, Autumn 2008 New Building for SEE: 3D images inside... Artists impression of new build Where in the world? Answer inside... SEE Here: Publications and Grant Successes SEE Success! Our visitors SEE is pleased to announce visits by the following high profile scientists in the New Year: 9 January 09 Prof. Louise Heathwaite, NERC theme leader in sustainable use of natural resources, Lancaster University 13 January 09 Prof. Robert Watson, DEFRA Chief Scientist, UEA 21 January 09 Prof. Tim Jickells, NERC theme leader in Earth System Science, UEA 27 January 09 Sir Nicholas Stern will launch the ESRC Centre for Climate Change, Economics and Policy SEE us publish Since the start of this year, SEE authors have produced around two hundred peer reviewed publications -that’s roughly one paper a day! These include 3 Nature papers, 2 Science papers, 8 Geophysical Research Letters papers, 4 papers each in Geology, Geophysics and Geomorphology, 6 Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics papers, 3 Climate Policy papers… The five Nature/Science papers illustrate perfectly how SEE covers all aspects of the Earth System, producing world leading interdisciplinary research that’s of a quality second to none. Dave Gubbins mused on geomagnetic reversals deep within the Earth’s core (Nature, vol. 452 p 165); Dan Morgan looked at the timing of the Santorini eruption (Science, vo. 321, p 1178); Alan Haywood contributed to understanding how CO2 changes affect the Greenland ice sheet (Nature, vol 454, p 1102), whilst Mat Evans and Jim McQuaid (taking time out from safety video stardom) showed how halogens were destroying ozone over the Atlantic Ocean (Nature, 453, 1232). The policy relevance of our work was highlighted when Dominick Spracklen showed how planting forests saved more carbon than using biofuels (Science, vol. 317 p 902). Social scientists not to be outdone published prize winning high profile articles on Chinese emissions (Klaus Hubacek, Energy Policy, vol. 36, 3572) and low carbon societies (Tim Foxon, Climate Policy, vol. 8, p S3). These articles and many others led to numerous SEE scientists staring in the media, although having our own Earthquake was a bonus! For a full list of our latest publications see: http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/news-items/publications.htm http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/news-items/greenland http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/news-items/neakameni Our PhD Successes Well done to the following PhD students who have completed in the last 6 months: Clare Allen ICAS Caroline Bain ICAS James Begg IGS Matthew Box IGS Louise Ellis SRI Eleanor John IGS Sarah Jane Lock ICAS Sally Morgan IGT Rachel Spraggs IGS Daniel Tatham IGT Dominique Tobler IGS Jamie Vinnels IGT Our prize winners Alan Haywood has been awarded a 2008 Philip Leverhulme Prize in recognition of his research in palaeoclimatology. Prizes are awarded to outstanding scholars who have made a substantial and recognised contribution to their particular field of study, recognised at an international level and whose future contributions are held to be of correspondingly high promise. Philip Leverhulme Prizes commemorate the contribution to the work of the Trust made by Philip Leverhulme, the Third Viscount Leverhulme and grandson of the Founder. Each Prize has a value of £70,000 which can be used for any purpose which can advance the Prize holder's research. Ian Kane has been awarded the Yorkshire Geological Society Fearnsides Prize for 2008. Established in 1968 by Professor William George Fearnsides to be awarded not more frequently than biennially to a person, under 35 years of age on first of December in the year of the award, who has shown promise in geological research or geological sciences and who is associated with the north of England by birth, training or locus of researches. SEE Here: Research Institute Updates - ICAS ICAS Staff and Research Students report on their most recent research successes: Andy Challinor’s recent work has looked at the properties of crops that would be needed for adaptation to climate change, and has assessed the existence of those properties in existing crop varieties. Results for India suggest good potential for successful adaptation to climate change. Mat Evans and Jim McQuaid are co-authors on a recent Nature paper demonstrating the significance of halogens in the troposphere. Presumably that means another hundred chemical reactions which we need to worry about. Ken Carslaw is part of a new Marie Curie project on cosmic rays, clouds and climate. The project involves 8 European institutions and the CERN particle accelerator to produce cosmic rays - on a smaller scale than LHC, and, hopefully, with less chance of destroying the world. It's the first international collaboration to tackle this controversial issue. Alan Blyth and Jason Lowenstein have found that the production of rain by collision and coalescence of cloud drops in small maritime cumulus clouds (warm rain process) can be explained using the aerosols that are ingested into the cloud base. No other mechanisms such as turbulent capture of drops or enhancement of the growth due to entrainment are required (as previously thought). The generation of “warm rain” is a 50-year old problem, with ramifications for climate modelling and for the analysis of rainfall worldwide. Ian Brooks, Barbara Brooks, Jim McQuaid and others have just returned from a successful 6-week field campaign in the central arctic as part of the Arctic Summer Cloud-Ocean Study (ASCOS) - an international IPY project based on the Swedish icebreaker Oden. There were 32 scientists on board, from institutions in 10 countries (and 14 nationalities). Leeds led the boundary layer measurement programme – making turbulent flux measurements from 15 and 30 metre masts on the ice, wind profiles by SODAR, and boundary layer profiling with tethered balloon. They also contributed aerosol composition measurements & aerosol measurements from helicopter. Barbara over flew the “ground” (ice) sites in the NASA DC8 research aircraft, making more aerosol measurements with instruments from Leeds installed on the NASA aircraft. Mat Evans, Jim McQuaid and others played leading roles in the recent OP3 campaign based in Borneo, with ground-based and aircraft-based measurements of chemical species emitted by the tropical forests. The next big aircraft campaign is VOCALS in the Autumn of 2008, studying the Pacific marine stratocumulus layers off Chile. These rather ordinary clouds have a massive climatic forcing, and appear to be very sensitive to biogeophysical feedbacks – VOCALS will get to the heart of studying the microphysics and dynamics of the clouds, using several research aircraft. Alans Gadian and Blyth are in Chile as part of the UK VOCALS consortium. Colin Beaney, with PhD supervisors Alan Gadian and Alan Blyth, is developing a new model of cloud electrification in the UK Met Office’s “Cloud Resolving Model”. Surprisingly, there are very few models of thunderstorm electrification worldwide, and this initiative provides the UK with a valuable research tool. The Chief Executive of the Met Office, John Hirst, had a very successful two day visit to ICAS early in September. John made clear statements of his view that the Met Office will benefit, through better research and better model development, if it collaborates more strongly with the University of Leeds. Once again, the NCAS Summer School in Atmospheric Measurement was held extremely successfully on the Isle of Arran earlier in September. This remains a unique educational event, worldwide, bringing our research into the teaching of students from many institutions. Doug Parker was co-organiser of the “1st Ewiem Nimdie Summer School in Tropical Meteorology and Climate”, held at the Kwame Nkrumah University for Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, in July 2008. The event was the first of its kind to be held in West Africa, and has demonstrated the effectiveness of bringing modern research and teaching methods to Africa (rather than paying for small numbers of Africans to travel to Europe or the USA). 48 students and 30 staff, from many African countries as well as Europe and the USA, took part in the Summer School. Caroline Bain, Matt Hobby and Andrea Jackson and 5 students from Leeds also contributed: the event made use of some of the teaching methods developed for the NCAS summer school in Arran. “Ewiem Nimdie” is Ashanti for “Atmospheric Science”. Funding was obtained from a British Council / DfES grant, and from the AMMA-EU research programme. It is planned to hold the 2nd Ewiem Nimdie summer school in 2010. SEE Here: Research Institute Updates - IGS It appears that most of IGS has been to China recently: At the start of October three IGS PhD students were awarded places on a fully funded RCUK summer school in Beijing, China, entitled “Plants and Changing Climate: What the past tells us of the future through data/model comparisons.” Abigail Clifton, 1st year student, Jonathon Poulter, 2nd year student and Claire McDonald, a final year student, were given the opportunity to attend this exciting course. The school was organized by the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences and The Open University, with researchers from across China and UK giving presentations and practical demonstrations. There were five students from the UK and many others from Chinese universities. It’s a hard life being a palaeobotanist with the summer school hosts starting it off with a tour around the sites of Beijing including the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. However, the work soon began when we were taken to Dongling Mountains for fieldwork where theory was put into practice by performing a CLAMP analysis. This involved a study of over twenty species of plants in the area and examining their leaf characteristics to obtain climate estimates from them. This was the first time complete novices had collected the data needed for the analysis and it enabled the robustness of the method to be tested. CLAMP analysis can be used to obtain a range of climate estimates from fossil leaf assemblages, using the modern data as a calibration set. When we arrived back in Beijing we got right back into work with a long walk around the Summer Palace. The presentations started with a range of talks about early evolution of land plants from Prof. Dianne Edwards and we then explored the preservation problems of fossil plants with Prof. Bob Spicer and Prof. David Fergusson. There were also interesting talks about palaeoecological reconstructions, both the vegetation and the climate, by Dr. Helen Craggs, Prof. Li, Prof. Ni and Dr Yao. The talks then changed focus onto the use of climate modelling, which was covered by Prof. Paul Valdes. There were discussions about the pros and cons involved in palaeo-climate modelling and where gaps in knowledge need to be filled to improve them. The course gave us the opportunity not only to develop existing skills and learn new ones, but also to take part in dynamic discussions about topics we are currently working in. This was a great chance to learn from others’ research expertise, but also to experience a different culture. To gain a true experience of the culture the unusual variety of meats must be tasted, from rather inconspicuous sheep parts to starfish and scorpions on a stick. There were also plants for the botanists to try, such as ferns, lotus flowers and ginkgo seeds. Therefore, the summer school was a great success for all involved and it will hopefully lead to future collaborations between the UK and China. Paul Wignall and Dave Bond, together with igneous specialists Dougal Jerram (Durham) and Mike Widdowson (Open), and conodont biostratigrapher Sun Yadong (Wuhan, China) travelled in October to the Emeishan Large Igneous Province in western Yunnan Province, southwest China. They discovered evidence for the previously unidentified feeder system of this LIP, as well as several new sections which exhibit excellent limestone/basalt contacts and document a remarkable environmental perturbation during the Middle Permian. Biostratigraphic analysis has already revealed the Middle Permian extinction timing to be earlier than previously thought. The extinction appears to correlate well with the early onset of volcanism in the province - once again providing a strong causal link between volcanism and mass extinction. This work is part of a major NERC project in IGS, with Rob Newton and Simon Bottrell visiting China earlier this year to investigate stable isotope records of the associated environmental change; ably assisted by PhD student Eleanor John, who has just passed her viva with flying colours. Rob Chapman has just completed a £14k consultancy project with New Boliden (Sweden) investigating the occurrence and origins of placer gold throughout Wexford, Ireland. The project, which was carried out in conjunction with the University of Brighton, involved a week's fieldwork in June and subsequent analytical work using the electron optics facility. Noelle Odling is hosting the kick-off meeting of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network IMVUL (Towards Improved Groundwater Vulnerability Assessment) - an EU FW7 project. The network started officially on 1st October and will last for 4 years. Total budget for the whole network is Euros 3,221,516 and the School budget is Euros 576,340 (about £450,000). We will have two PhD students working as part of the network. Associated partners here in Leeds include the EA, Arups and Yorkshire Water. And in another new initiative, Nigel Mountney and Bill McCaffrey have launched the Fluvial Research Group (FRG). They have one sponsor so far - AREVA - the French Uranium company - and promising leads on a few others, with our first PhD student started—http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/igs/frg/index.htm IGS news continues overleaf…. And they’ve been elsewhere too in a yellow submarine: Jeff Peakall and Dan Parsons have been awarded 770 k from NERC (400 k Leeds) to lead a study on Flow dynamics and sedimentation in an active submarine channel. Submarine channels are like giant rivers that can flow for 1000’s of km’s across the ocean floors. They are a key transport pathway for sediment and carbon into the deep sea. However, the flows through these channels are infrequent and highly destructive. Consequently there are no detailed studies of these flows in natural channels, and no studies that link flow measurements to the deposits that are produced. There is almost no other environment on Earth where no knowledge exists of how flow processes are linked to their sedimentary deposits, and this in the largest deposits on Earth! Alongside colleagues at the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre Autosub, NERC’s new state-of-the-art autonomous submarine (yellow, of course!), will travel to the Black Sea to study flows through a uniquely active sinuous sea-floor channel network. The Autosub will 'fly' the team’s measurement equipment just above the bottom in order to map channel morphology and the three dimensional flows in unprecedented detail. These data will be linked to seabed properties and information on the deposits to link processes and deposits for the first time. Combining this with numerical modelling will enable a fully predictive model to be developed. As a spin-off from the NERC grant, Leeds National Oceanography Centre’s Autosub PhD student Heather Macdonald and a collaborator from NOC took Autosub down 4000 m to the bottom of a series of canyons, as part of a cruise along the Atlantic margin from the Canary Islands to the Celtic Margin. There they imaged holes in the sea-floor the size of Wembley stadium! The data is stunning and shows the importance of imaging 100m above the bed rather than from 4 km! Jeff Peakall and Dan Morgan are just back from a cruise in Turkey where they have deployed acoustic devices to measure detailed flow structure and sediment dynamics in a submarine channel system. Dan (with Hardy, Durham) has also been awarded a NERC small grant to investigate coherent flow structures over gravel beds. Robert Mortimer and Michael Krom' are working on the controls on phosphorous dynamics in rivers and wetlands in conjunction with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) at Wallingford, and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) at Slimbridge. They demonstrated the potential of DET gel probes for determining the role played by bed sediments in a recent paper in the Journal of Hydrology (Jarvie et al 2008). This paper showed that in both arable and sewage-impacted streams, the surface 'cap' of fine sediment may play an important role in inhibiting upward movement of SRP from subsurface pore-waters into the overlying river water, under steady-state, low-flow conditions. In addition, their PhD student Elizabeth Palmer-Felgate published her first paper (also in the Journal of Hydrology), which was on phosphorous dynamics downstream of a sewage Suction coring on a mid-channel bar on the Rio Parana works, using data from continuous monitoring to show highly detailed diurnal, seasonal and event signals. This allowed identification of the controls on phosphorous during low flow (sewage treatment works) and storm periods (diffuse run off), as well as demonstrating the complexity of nutrient cycles and how they couple to productivity. Following on from this work, Rob Mortimer has been asked to act as a consultant partner on a 250,000Euro funded Irish Environmental Protection Agency grant entitled 'Flow-Proportional passive sensor validation of phosphorus and nitrogen in Irish rivers (Flow-Pro)' lead by Dr Phil Jordan from the University of Ulster. Rob Mortimer's group continues to further our understanding of complex biogeochemical interactions between the manganese and nitrogen cycles, in particular anoxic nitrification of ammonia by manganese oxide minerals. Former NERC funded PhD student Rebecca Bartlett has recently published two papers. The first (Bartlett et al 2007) showed that elevated sediment manganese concentrations alone are not sufficient to drive anoxic nitrification. The second (Bartlett et al 2008) provided evidence for anoxic nitrification in Humber Estuary sediments and demonstrated that the recent physico-chemical stability of sediments is likely to be a major control on the process. Another student, Rachael Spraggs (NERC CASE with AERC Ltd), has recently completed her PhD. Her results demonstrated the potential for anoxic nitrification in fresh-water sediments, and assessed the potential of the process for treating ammonia-rich landfill leachate. SEE Here: Research Institute Updates - IGT Olivine and zircon crystals, magma flow models, collaborative projects, workshops and multiple PhD student publications... All in a days work for staff and students from IGT: Dan Morgan's Science Paper: Martin, V.M., *Morgan, D.J.*, Jerram, D.A., Caddick, M.J., Prior, D.J., & Davidson, J.P. (2008) ?Bang! Month-Scale Eruption Triggering at Santorini Volcano?, Science, *321 *1178. /Access online via doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/ science.1159584/ The paper looks at olivine crystals from mafic enclaves erupted in the 1925 lavas of Nea Kameni. These indicate that they were emplaced into the dacitic (olivine free) magma chamber between 3 and 10 weeks before eruption, and this emplacement is posited as the triggering mechanism of the eruption. This is one of the few studies we have where timescales determined from the rocks produced are resolved well enough to be directly comparable to monitoring data and hazard assessment - in this case, felt seismicity occurred at Nea Kameni two weeks prior to eruption. Dan is also involved in a successful Marsden Grant proposal in New Zealand. This project will look at the isotope chemistry and pre-eruptive residence times of magmas in the Taupo Volcanic Zone that led to the large silicic eruptions. In a previous study Dan showed that there is often a bimodal signature in the zircon crystals, a common recycled unit which is scavenged repeatedly, and a rejuvenating component closer to the eruption age. More projects down under……...Locko Neuberg is part of another international research group teaming up to work on New Zealand's volcanoes Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe. At Leeds magma flow models will be employed to identify and interpret volcanic seismic signals from these volcanoes. The Afar Rift Consortium, led by Tim Wright, has now reached peak employment. Drs Carolina Pagli and Mariangela Guidarelli began postdocs earlier this year on InSAR and Seismology respectively. New PhD students Rachael Ellen (faulting and magmatism) and Peter Webb (modelling of rift segmentation) started their projects on 1 October. The full consortium met for a lively interdisciplinary workshop at the BGS in Nottingham from 23-25 September. Welcome also to Atalay Ayele, a seismologist from Addis Ababa University, who is spending a year in IGT working on the project. Dabbahu, Afar. Photo: Cindy Ebinger In the framework of the NCEO (NERC funded National Centre for Earth Observation) Greg Houseman, Tim Wright and Locko Neuberg are involved in the 5 year Science Theme "Dynamic Earth & Geohazards". This consortium exploits great advantages by using the full suite of satellite and ground-based observations together. It comprises groups with strong track records of theory and observation in tectonics, geodesy and vocanology at Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, ESSC Reading and Leeds. In the last week, no less than 3 IGT or IGT-related PhD students have had papers on their thesis work accepted for publication in leading journals: Lucy Catt (with Jared West & Roger Clark, in Geophysical Prospecting, on geoelectrics), Carl Reine (with Mirko van der Baan & Roger Clark, in Geophysics, on seismic attenuation), and Brian Barret (with Tavi Murray, Roger Clark, and others, in JGR, on GPR imaging of internal structure of glaciers). GETECH in cooperation with Kareem Vincent (MSc student) has developed a new global satellite derived gravity model by stacking three solutions, GETECH2004, Sandwell and Smithv16.1 and DNSC08 models. The new solution is called "Trident" and out performs all solutions with improved resolution. Results to be presented at Fall AGU. Dave Gubbins is back from his extended sabbatical in Australia and California. In Sydney he worked with David Ivers in the Maths department on dynamos and with Dennis Winch and Dietmar Mueller of the Geosciences department on analysis of crustal magnetic fields. Sheona Masterton and Chris Davies joined him for a while in Sydney. In California he visited the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, first at the Dynamo Theory workshop (run mostly by the Leeds Maths Department and again joined by Chris Davies!) and then participating in the CIDER (=Cooperative Institute for Deep Earth Research) workshop - enforced lunches with students and beach barbecues on Wednesdays! Main achievements were completion of some work on kinematic dynamos, a paper with Chris Davies on interpretation of paleomagnetic results in terms of a "locked" dynamo, a new method for determining satellite magnetic fields from crustal magnetisation, and a new proposed layer around the inner core. The latter was the subject of an IGT seminar on October 17th. Bruce Yardley was lead convenor of a Geological Society of London meeting, held on 24th October, on the Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste. The near-capacity meeting was aimed not at geologists but at planners, regulators, councillors, members of CoRWM and other non-geologists who will be involved in plans for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste under current plans outlined in a recent white paper, and aimed to show what earth scientists are able to find out about the subsurface and its behaviour, using examples from a range of industries. Both Bruce Yardley and Graham Stuart were speakers, while Marge Wilson attended as a representative of NERC Council. The various talks, and the often lively discussions, were videoed and will be made available shortly on the Geological Society web site. SEE Here: Research Institute Updates - SRI Who’s doing what in SRI: Mette Termansen has taken on a new role as Co-Director of SRI (a joint role with Prof. Andy Gouldson) from the 1st of August. This defines a new organisation in SRI, which reflects the decision of the institute to strengthen the internal organisation and leadership of the team. The aim of this is to develop further SRI’s research capabilities in the coming years. Mette will have responsibilities for strategic research leadership and institute management and, along with Andy Gouldson, will represent SRI on the School Steering Committee and Research Committee. Dr James Van Alstine is a lecturer in environmental policy at the University of Leeds' SRI and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His research focuses on the social and environmental risks of industrial development, the governance of resource extraction in developing countries, and the application and advancement of institutional and organisational theory. He is currently completing his PhD on corporate environmentalism in the South African petrochemical industry and holds an MSc in Environmental Assessment and Evaluation from LSE and a BA in Philosophy from North-western University. James is directing a three year Alcoa Foundation grant funded research programme that explores sustainable development in extractive industry host communities. Dr Nesha Beharry joined SRI in March 2009 as a post-doctoral research fellow. She is an environmental economist with interests in non-market valuation and natural resource management. She holds a PhD. in Environmental Economics and Management from The University of York. Her PhD. research involved the use of choice experiments to estimate the economic benefits of quality changes in coastal water quality in the Caribbean. Isla Maguerita, Venezuela Nesha’s work at SRI includes developing a land-use economic model for Yorkshire Water. This model will be used to determine how alternative land use decisions affect drinking water quality in the Yorkshire region. The outputs of this model will be used to design incentives schemes for land managers to improve the water purification services of the agricultural land they manage. Dr. Yim Ling Siu was invited as a guest speaker to present a joint paper (with Dr. Tim Foxon) entitled "A Risk Assessment of Low Carbon Energy Options in China Toward Sustainability" in the Third Asian International Energy Conference which was held on the 4th September 2008 at Hong Kong Baptist University. This year, the conference provided a special focus on "China Energy" and the paper presented applied a risk assessment framework which was developed at Leeds as an auditing tool to provide risk profiles of the three existing types of photovoltaic technologies to support a sustainable energy supply in China. In September 2008, Dr. Yim Ling Siu was awarded a prestigious UK-China Research Fellowship for Excellence by the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS). This fellowship is part of Sino-UK Partners in Education programme, aiming to promote collaboration and facilitate cutting edge research between researchers and institutions in the UK and China. In total, 25 Research Fellowships were awarded by DIUS this year (20 awards are given each year and an additional 5 awards were given this year specifically for proposals related to the 2008 Olympics in China) which enable researchers to spend between three months and up to six months working with Chinese institutions. Yim Ling's research proposal "Application of a new risk assessment framework on environmental risks, disaster prevention and sustainability" was awarded a Fellowship. After fulfilling her teaching duty, Yim Ling will start her programme in China in late Feb/early March 2009 with the support of her Chinese collaborators - the Academy of Disaster Reduction & Emergency Management, Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Education and Beijing Normal University. Dr Tim Foxon at SRI is a member of a £2.1 million collaborative project 'Transition pathways to a low carbon economy', funded through the EPSRC/E.ON Strategic Partnership. The project will develop a set of potential transition pathways for the UK energy system to a low carbon future, and undertake integrated assessments of the technical and economic feasibility, and social and environmental acceptability of these pathways. A new book on 'Innovation for a Low Carbon Economy' has just been published, edited by Tim Foxon, RCUK Academic Fellow in SRI, together with colleagues from Germany and Italy. The book, published by Edward Elgar, analyses the interplay of technological, institutional, market and management factors in the dynamics of energy systems, and will inform national and international policies to promote low carbon innovation. The Low Carbon Society (LCS) is not a utopian vision, but is both technically and economically feasible. These are the findings from an international modelling exercise 'Low-Carbon Society Scenarios Towards 2050', published in a special edition of the journal Climate Policy, co-edited by Tim Foxon, RCUK Academic Fellow in SRI. Dr Sam Wong participated in the Conference ‘Global Change and Water Resources in West Africa’ organized by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso this August. He has recently obtained £20K from the UK’s National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) to build a merry-go-round on a deprived primary school playground in Bradford in order to promote sustainability education and well-being. SRI News continues overleaf... Who else is doing what in SRI: Dr. Susannah Sallu remains at SRI after her one-year lectureship and has been appointed in a permanent position as Lecturer in Environment & Development. Susannah's research interests revolve around the links between biodiversity, society and development with significant regional expertise in Africa. Susannah will manage the MSc. Sustainability (Environment & Development) programme. Susannah has relocated to office 3.20(Env) on the SRI corridor. Dr. Susannah Sallu and Natalie Suckall (SRI PhD student) ran a successful capacity building workshop in 'Participatory methods for land use management planning' in Bolgatanga, northern Ghana 28th-29th March 2008. Workshop participants included chiefs, regional staff from Departments of Agriculture, Land, Forestry and Environment and academics from the University of Cape Coast. The workshop formed part of a British Council/DFID Development Partnerships in Higher Education programme (DELPHE) project which is managed by John Atabila (SRI PhD student) and Andy Dougill. In July, Dr Mark Reed (who leaves for Aberdeen next year) became the first UK researcher to be awarded a joint fellowship between the US Social Science Research Council and ESRC to visit researchers from the US National Science Foundation funded Coupled Natural-Human Systems programme. Working with colleagues from the RELU-funded Sustainable Uplands project, they put together two papers and submitted a proposal to NERC's Eco-system Services and Poverty Alleviation programme. Their proposed research builds on the RELU project and aims to enhance research capacity and develop novel methods to reduce the vulnerability of the poor to future climatic and other changes in southern Africa. The team want to develop bundles of adaptation options that combine untapped ecosystem services with other assets to provide new livelihood options, together with institutional capacity for interdisciplinary research through knowledge exchange, training and a shared agenda for future collaboration. Dr Claire Quinn presented a paper examining the property rights regimes that govern resource management in uplands at the IASC conference held in Cheltenham in July 2008. The ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, jointly hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, started on 1 October 2008. The ESRC awarded a grant of £5.5 million over the next five years for the establishment of the centre to examine how society should respond to the challenge of climate change. The centre is led by Lord Stern of Brentford. At LSE, the centre is managed by Professor Judith Rees and Dr Simon Dietz. Professor Andy Gouldson and Dr Jouni Paavola is managing the centre in Leeds. The centre is conducting research in four main areas: • Developing better physical and economic models of climate change • Examining how to overcome the deadlock in international climate-change talks • Understanding how developing economies can adapt to climate change • Identifying strategies for efficient emissions reductions in industrialised countries. The new centre is establishing links with policy makers, stakeholders and experts across the world to share its work, and it is establishing a steering committee to allow them to influence the direction of its research. The centre is holding regular conferences and briefings to highlight its findings, publish research freely online and set up an internet forum to allow rapid reaction to and discussion of its work. Paul Dodds will be spending the next three months working as a Fellow in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) at Westminster, producing a 4-page briefing note for Members on the subject of Transitions to a low carbon economy. Dr Klaus Hubacek has recently been appointed as director of SRI's PhD program and Masters of Research program. Klaus joined the School of the Environment in September 2002. Before that Klaus has been working at a variety of Universities in Central and Eastern Europe and the US. Since 1999, he has also been affiliated with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. Klaus has conducted studies for a number of national agencies in Austria, China, Japan, and the UK, and international institutions such as the European Statistical Office (EUROSTAT), the OECD, and UNESCO. He has published on a variety of topics such as renewable energy, material flow analysis, input-output modelling, appropriate technology, biodiversity, and land use change and more recently on participatory approaches, governance and mediated modelling. Who Owns China’s Pollution? Things are not always as straightforward as they seem – a new dimension in the discussion on the responsibility for climate change emissions has been added by a recent SRI paper published in Energy Policy. Developed countries import many of the products that contribute to China's greenhouse gas emissions. Economists found that one-third of China's CO2 emissions are from manufacturing exports for developed countries. The work of the team around SRI member Dr Klaus Hubacek has recently been featured in ScienceNews, New Scientist and in the German News (WDR5). SEE Here: Research into Teaching (R into T) Getting the balance right: Key theme T6 on the University strategy map is ‘translate excellence in research and scholarship into learning opportunities for students’. Since the School is part of a University Gold Peak for research, our students deserve the very best learning opportunities as part of their education here. Making sure we communicate our research to students and give them opportunities to get involved in research is one of our School Learning and Teaching themes for this year. We want to spread examples of good practice in R into T across the school so that every student feels part of a thriving community of researchers and scholars. We’ve made our first year students aware of the R into T theme during induction, and we’ve asked them to talk to their personal tutors about research. These simple changes are just the first step. We need to build on them in modules. For instance, Jacqueline Houghton has used fieldwork photographs from the AFAR project in the new introductory geology sessions in SOEE1490 Understanding the Earth to illustrate constructive plate boundaries. Maite Baeza Romero’s module SOEE1280 Atmosphere of Planet Earth includes lectures by ICAS staff on their research interests. At level two most of our students already develop their research skills in SOEE2095 Research and Career Skills or SOEE2230 Environmental Research: Techniques, Principles and Practice, and they were very complimentary about this in the recent programme surveys. At levels three and four, they have the opportunity to undertake their own research projects, and recent feedback for these was also highly positive. Our postgraduate students are involved in research directly and we should take advantage of their interactions with under-graduates (e.g. during demonstrating) to encourage an ongoing dialogue about research. Returning to the title of this piece, it is important to get the balance right. The danger of promoting the R into T agenda without showing students and staff how they benefit from it is that both groups become less engaged in learning and teaching. It is up to staff to identify opportunities for using their research to enhance the student experience. This may simply be making more explicit links to research in teaching materials. It may involve using technology, for instance Alan Gadian’s new module SOEE3570 Practical Weather Forecasting will use the weather forecasting model used across the world. Finally, it might involve winning grants to support development of modules. Good examples of this are the TQEF grants awarded to Lucie Middlemiss and to Rob Mortimer and Mike Krom. Lucie’s project is on ‘Carbon foot-printing for teaching, research and community’, and will see second year students directly involved in research. Rob and Mike’s project, ‘Introducing the STELLA software for research-led biogeochemical cycles teaching at levels 3 and 5’ (recently published in Planet) has seen students building and testing their own models of the carbon and water cycles, and predicting the impacts of future scenarios. Rob Mortimer, Director of Learning and Teaching SEE Here: Building Images The £23.5million redevelopment of the existing Earth Sciences Building and its wing extension seen in 3D for the first time: The SEE building project is currently running three weeks ahead of schedule and is due for completion in early 2010. For more information, including a gallery of images showing progress on the site itself, see: http://see-typo3.leeds.ac.uk/test/internal-users/building-information/ SEE Here: Our New Staff! Lecturing Staff Doug Angus, RCUK Fellow in CO2 sequestration, has joined IGT from a post-doc at Bristol Earth Sciences and will be developing a work plan on a range of carbon sequestration issues for the 5-year period of the research fellowship, including some initial collaborations with Quentin and others across IGT and the wider remit of energy / low-carbon work across the campus (linked to EEE). James van Alstine, Lecturer in Environmental Policy and Programme Manager of the MSc Sustainability (Environmental Politics and Policy) in SRI. James’ research focuses on the emergence and implementation of environmental policy in developing countries, the social and environmental risks of industrial development, the governance of resource extraction, and the application and advancement of institutional and organisational theory. James is also directing a three year Alcoa Foundation grant funded research programme that explores sustainable development in extractive industry host communities. Rossmary Villegas, Lecturer in Petroleum Engineering, has joined IGT from a post-doc at Herriot Watt University. Her research interests span reservoir analysis and simulation, reserves evaluation, well test analysis, production forecasts, field development plans and have been based on multi-discipl9nary teamwork. Her current research combines applied mathematics with applications in reservoir simulation and geophysics (4d seismic, EM). Research Staff Miroslaw (Mirek) Andrejczuk, Research Fellow IGT, is working with Jurgen Neuberg on volcano modelling using data from Soufriere Hills volcano, Montserrat, West Indies. Lindsay Bennett, Research Fellow ICAS, is working with Alan Blyth. Lindsay has been away from the School for some time and is now back working on convective initiation as part of UK-COPS. Chris Hubbard, Research Fellow IGS, is working with Jared West, Kath Morris and Sam Shaw on a coherent physical explanation of the ability of soil- and groundwater- cleaning microorganisms to produce electrical signals, and to identify the potential to use such signals to monitor biostimulation cleanup operations. Patricia Krecl, Research Fellow ICAS, is working on the VOCALS project, specifically on the VAMOS Ocean Cloud Atmosphere Land Study. Sarah Jane Lock, Research Fellow ICAS, is working with Alan Gadian. Sarah has recently completed a PhD in the School and is now working on orographic flow in complex terrain as part of UK-COPS. Claire McDonald, Research Associate IGS, is working with Jane Francis on the study of fossil plans and herbivory in paleaoenvironments. Manoj Menon, Research Fellow SRI, is working with Andy Dougill and Jim McQuaid on Dryland Soil—Atmosphere Interactions. Bably Prasad, Commonwealth Scholarship IGS, from the Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research has a 6-month post to work on treatment of acid mine drainage using transformed fly ash with Rob Mortimer. Andrew Smith, Project Officer is working with Andrea Jackson to create a Virtual Summer School for pre-entry undergraduate students aimed at enhancing the integration of students into the School and their degree programme. Teaching Staff Claire Bastin, P/T Teaching Fellow, MSc Sustainability Programme, is assisting with the day to day running of the MSc Sustainability (Environmental Consultancy and Project Management) and delivering a number of taught modules on this programme. Alice Miller, Teaching Assistant SRI, is supporting the teaching of UG courses in Environmental Management and Sustainability. Clerical / Administrative Staff Lynsay McAlister, PGT & PGR Support Assistant, provides a range of administrative support in the PGR and PGT offices. She works 2 days (Monday and Friday) with Michelle in the PGR Office and 3 days (Tuesday to Thursday with Shareen in the PGT Office). Lizzie O’Flynn, PGT Admissions Support Assistant, works together with Sarah Goldie in the PGT Office to provide taught postgraduate admissions support across the School. Fran Race, UG Clerk, provides general reception and clerical support for the UG Office. Margo Hanson, P/T Administrator for the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics & Policy, is working closely with Andy Gouldson and Jouni Paavola (Director and Deputy Director of the ESRC Centre) to coordinate the strategic development and effective management of the Centre alongside its joint partners at LSE. Technical / IT Staff Matthew Gascoyne, Instrument Technician, is supporting Matt Hobby in the design, manufacture, servicing, calibration and repair of electronic instruments across the School. He is also involved in preparing instruments for fieldwork. Rhys Moore, Trainee Technician, is based in the Engineering Workshop and as part of his training is undertaking a day release course in order to obtain a qualification in mechanical engineering. Richard Rigby, IT Support Officer (starts 1 December) to cover James Groves’ two-year secondment to NCAS by providing IT support across the School. Faculty Staff Jo Rowell, Faculty HR Manager, works across the Faculty of Environment providing support and advice on HR matters. Clare Ryan, Media Intern (shared with MAPS), will advise academic staff on stories with the potential to create national and international interest and draft proposals for disseminating research. Clare may also accompany researchers on expeditions and field trips in order to help to promote this work to key audiences. Julie Whittle, Research Skills Training Assistant, provides clerical support to the Research Skills Training Team across the Faculties of Environment and MAPS. SEE Here: Meet Key Faculty Staff Introduction to the Faculty Finance Office The Faculty Finance Office has been set up to provide a central point of contact for all financial queries not related to research. We are temporarily located at 33 Hyde Terrace until our move early next year onto University Road. Our office provides the following services to colleagues in SEE; Joanna MacIntyre is the first point of contact for general purchasing enquires, purchase orders, new vendor set up, travel, vehicle hire, hotel accommodation, conferences and other similar queries. Jayne Doran deals with purchasing requirements relating to tenders, tender specifications, purchasing thresholds, import & export of goods either temporary or permanent, SIPR & Science Warehouse training, inventory information, purchasing reports and the sourcing of companies who are not contracted as a University supplier. Blessing James and Naomi Armstrong are the first point of contact for day-to-day queries including the handling of expense and petty cash claims; raising sales invoices and receiving payments by credit card, cheque and cash; and overseeing the monitoring of School accounts. Ben Clark deals with school budgets, the school’s long and short-term financial strategies, advising on non-research project costing, authorising expenditure and various other operational queries. Introduction to the Faculty Research Office: The FRO provides support around seven key areas: pre-award support; support during contract negotiations; post-award support; co-ordinating research business processes and activities; the provision and analysis of research management information; policy development and enhancement; and research-related communications. Sheila Mathison manages the FRO to ensure that its staff provide the support and assistance required across the Faculty. Sheila also provides management information for School and Faculty planning. If you are unsure who to contact, Sheila will be pleased to redirect your enquiry to the right person. Emma Holden works on European and International Projects and is also the first point of contact for ITS. Phillipa Smith works with Emma on European and International Projects and specialises in post award admin. Lisa Burke focuses on applications and awards for UK research funding and is the first point of contact for SEE. Angela Jackman looks after Industrial Partnerships and Frameworks, general contract issues and is the first point of contact for SoG. Phillipa Worley, Nicola Borthwick and Susan Illingworth are all pre-award administrators. Gordon Aickin, Jonathan Exon, and Caroline Tootill specialise in post award administration and finance for UK grants. They focus on ITS, SoG and SEE respectively. Cassie Dupras looks after the research databases and all travel claims on Research Grants. She also deals with any general office enquiries. SEE Here: Calendar of Events November 2008 Wednesday 19 November: ICAS Seminar, 2pm, Colour Chemistry Annexe 2.09, Ewan O’Connor, University of Reading, Radar Group http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/ias/external.shtm Wednesday 19 November: SRI Seminar, 4pm Env LTE, Andy Gouldson and Angela Carpenter: ‘Environmental Policy, Performance and Justice: Examining trends in corporate environmental performance in the US from 1990-2006’ http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/sri/internal.shtm Friday 21 November: IGT Seminar, 4pm, venue tbc, Jeroen van Hunen, University of Durham http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/igt/events.shtm Wednesday 26 November: ICAS Seminar, 2pm, Colour Chemistry Annexe 2.09, Stephen Belcher, Boundary Layer Meteorology, University of Reading http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/ias/external.shtm Wednesday 26 November: SRI Seminar, 4pm, Env LTE, David Hall-Matthews: ‘Famine and Democracy in Malawi’ http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/sri/internal.shtm Thursday 27 November: IGS Seminar, 1pm, venue tbc, Mike Simmons, Director of Geoscience, Neftex Petroleum Consultants Ltd. http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/igs/events.shtm Thursday 27 November: Geological Society Meeting, 9-5pm, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London: ‘CARBON: the deep geological cycle and its effect on the air we breathe’. Invited speakers include: Monica Grady (OU) - carbon in the solar system, Stephen Haggerty (Florida) - deep carbon reservoirs, Steve Sparks (Bristol) - carbon, climate and volcanic activity through time http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/events Friday 28 November: IGT Seminar, 4pm, venue tbc, Claude Jaupart, IPGP http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/igt/events.shtm December 2008 Wednesday 3 December: Joint Mini Symposium ICAS and School of Chemistry, 12-5pm, Chemistry LTA, ‘Air quality and climate change: Atmospheric science in a policy context’. Speakers include Piers Forster (UoL), Mike Pilling (UoL), David Stevenson (Edinburgh), John Pyle (Cambridge) http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/ias/external.shtm Friday 5 December: IGT Seminar, 4pm, venue tbc, Ernie Rutter, University of Manchester. http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/igt/events.shtm Monday 8 December: RocSoc and EnviroSoc Christmas Party, MINE 8pm-1am. Tickets £5. Please contact Paul Marshall ee07p2m@leeds.ac.uk for tickets and information. Wednesday 10 December: Staff Meeting, Environment Lecture Theatre E, 2pm. Wednesday 10 December: SRI Seminar, 4pm Env LTE, Gill Seyfang: ‘Sustainable communities and local currencies’ http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/sri/internal.shtm Friday 12 December: SEE Christmas Party, 6pm-Midnight, SCR. Please contact Cara Busfield c.l.busfield@leeds.ac.uk for tickets and information. Tuesday 16 December: SPEME Workshop: 'Technology Challenges for a Sustainable Future’ All day event. The morning will focus on ‘The Engineering/Medicine Interface’ and the afternoon will consider ‘Energy and Sustainability’. In the evening there will be an Inaugural Lecture by Prof Bill Gale, Aviation with the lecture entitled 'An interdisciplinary approach to sustainable aviation'. The lecture will start at 18:00 and will be followed by a buffet at 19:30. http://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/speme/SustainableFuture.shtml University Christmas Closures Please note that the University closes for Christmas on Tuesday 23 December 2008 and reopens on Monday 5 January 2009. SEE Here: Fun and Games Where in the world? Blasket Islands at dusk (Off the Dingle Peninsula, South West Ireland) Instructions: Sudoku: Using the digits 1 to 9, the Sudoku grid must be filled so that every column, row and block contains the numbers 1 to 9. No number can repeat within any column, row or block. Kakuro: Using the digits 1 to 12, fill in the puzzle so that every row and column adds up to their corresponding numerical indicator. No number may repeat in any row or column. THANK YOU! Joanna and Piers would like to thank all the contributors and Mollie Van der Gucht for getting the text and photos into shape. Special thanks also to the following people who, as a result of their entry into the SEE Photo Competition earlier this year, have provided many of the images featured: Mark Reed, Victoria Smith, Gary Keech, Mike Smith, Anja Schmidt & Tim Wright. Please don’t tell us about all the mistakes in this one, but do tell us about what you want to see in the next one, especially if you want to contribute an article to it! SEE Here! is edited and produced by Joanna Bowen and Piers Forster with much assistance from Mollie Van der Gucht. Items for inclusion in the Spring 09 edition should be sent to: news@see.leeds.ac.uk by 31 January 09.