One of the strengths of Bristol global change research is that we have considerable expertise across the full breadth of the subject. The following research streams are areas of particular focus.
Palaeoclimate research provides a context in which to understand future, human-made environmental change and its impacts, as well as a possibility to test computer models used to predict future change.
Why has climate changed in the past? What was the climate like in past warm intervals, such as the last interglacial 125,000 years ago, or when carbon dioxide concentrations were naturally a lot higher than today (for instance in the early Eocene, 55 million years ago)? How did these changes influence life, including human evolution? Can models simulate these periods accurately?
The terrestrial biosphere plays an important role in the global carbon cycle, and thus the global climate system.
The terrestrial carbon cycle involves physical, chemical and biological processes that operate over different spatial and temporal scales. These processes can either reduce the amount of atmospheric carbon or increase it, and are themselves responsive to changes in climate, hydrology and land use. This poses a major challenge for future climate prediction.
Oceans cover two thirds of the Earth's surface. They provide a livelihood for millions of people, support marine biodiversity, and play a crucial role in global biogeochemical cycles. Approximately half of the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and cement production in the last 200 years has been absorbed by the Earth's oceans. This leads to ocean acidification, which is often referred to as 'the other half of the climate problem', as we experience unprecedented changes in the pH of our oceans due to the absorption of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by human activities.
Is ocean acidification having an impact on our marine ecosystems?
The consequences of global climate change are potentially devastating: increased frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, thermal stress, drought, food scarcity and disease. Many of those likely to be most severely affected are also those most vulnerable.
Building adaptive capacity and resilience is crucial. Understanding the complex interaction of factors that influence our ability to adapt - politically, economically, socially and environmentally - will help us to develop more effective and targeted strategies for coping with the impacts of climate change in different regions of the world.
Preparedness and risk management regimes across the public and private sectors are intimately connected with institutions of governance. Potential legal and regulatory measures in response to climatically-induced changes must be informed by the latest scientific advice on risk and uncertainty, and evaluated in the context of political, ethical and economic barriers to their implementation.
The likelihood that continuing greenhouse-gas emissions will lead to an unmanageable degree of climate change has stimulated the search for world-wide technological solutions to reduce global warming.
Geoengineering is defined as a deliberate, large scale modification of the environment. Several schemes have been proposed as a mitigation strategy in a response to anthropogenic global warming, such as the injection of aerosols in the stratosphere. What is the likely climatic impact of such large scale interventions?
Biogeoengineering explores the potential role of plants and other organisms to ameliorate the impacts of climate change. For example, can Europe be cooled during the summer growing season by cultivating crops that have a higher solar reflectivity (or 'albedo')?
The Bristol Bio-geoengineering Initiative (BRISBI) has been created specifically to subject geoengineering schemes to critical and quantitative assessment, using the same fully coupled general circulation models (GCMs) of the Earth's climate system as used to predict future global warming, as well as ocean and terrestrial carbon cycle models in order to assess carbon cycle feedbacks and the response of atmospheric CO2.
Research in the School of Biological Sciences (SoBS) forms three streams that are fundamental to understanding the effects of global environmental change: