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Managed burning on moorland in the UK led to millions of people being exposed to unsafe levels of fine particulate pollution, according to research led by Ailish Graham and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). Prescribed burning is traditionally used to manage heather for grouse shooting across the UK uplands. Until recently...
Actually, this should not qualify as 'news' at all. The past observed depletion of stratospheric ozone has been studied extensively and is generally explained quantitatively by well understood chemical and dynamical processes. For example, the Antarctic ozone hole is caused by chlorine (and bromine) chemistry and interactions with polar stratospheric clouds (e.g. see above image...
PhD student Jamal Makkor has just published the first ever observation of an atmospheric chlorofluorocarbon (CFC). He analysed historical 1951 solar absorption infrared spectra recorded at the high altitude site of Jungfraujoch, Switzerland to retrieve the CFC-12 (CF2Cl2) surface mole fraction. The data had been recorded on paper rolls which Jamal digitised and processed. This...
Emily Dowd has been awarded a prestigious 5-year NERC Independent Research Fellowship (IRF). Her project is 'Constraining OH concentrations with Satellite data and Machine learning to Investigate CH4 Trends'. More details to follow.
The APARC assessment report on the impact of the huge 2022 Hunga eruption has just been published. The Hunga volcano in the tropical Pacific erupted in January 2022, sending a plume of vaporised seawater deep into the stratosphere in an explosion that equalled the size of Krakatoa’s in 1883. The Hunga assessment report’s main findings...
We have co-authored a new Nature review paper on short-lived halogens. More information soon. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09753-x
Current and former members of the group met up at the major ESA Living Planet Symposium in Vienna 23-27 June 2025. The Living Planet Symposia are held every 3 years and are a major forum for scientists, policymakers, and industry to discuss the latest Earth observation research, satellite technologies, and their role in addressing environmental...
Humankind will soon lose a great deal of vigilance over the ozone layer, which shields life on Earth from harmful solar radiation. The impending loss of NASA’s Aura and the Canadian Space Agency’s SCISAT satellites threatens scientists’ ability to closely monitor compounds that destroy ozone and alter stratospheric circulation. With no planned missions to replace...
Group members, led by Chris Wilson, joined a UN-led collaboration to measure methane emissions from the 2022 Nord Stream Pipeline Leak – the largest ever leak of methane recorded. We employed the atmospheric chemistry transport model, TOMCAT, to track the methane plume over 1,500 km back to its source and produce an estimate of the...
The Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, fulfilled an ambition by meeting PhD student Emily Dowd at the university. Mayor Brabin was on campus to attend the launch of the UK Earth Observation Network for Sustainability (UK-EONS) and was delighted to secure an unexpected photo with Emily. In her speech the Mayor paid tribute to...