logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2023
28m 5s

Drowning coastal ecosystems

Bbc World Service
About this episode
Global sea levels are rising more than 3mm per year under current climate conditions. At this rate we are due to hit an alarming 7mm rise per year by the end of the century. If this is not slowed, it could lead to the drowning of essential coastal ecosystems like mangroves and lagoons, professor of environmental science Neil Saintilan tells Science in Action ... Show More
Up next
Jul 3
Bird flu surges in Cambodia
There's a surge in cases and deaths from H5N1 bird flu in Cambodia - we hear what's the driver and how concerned we should be. Erik Karlsson, Head of Virology at the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh and director of the WHO’s H5 Reference Laboratory has been watching the uptick.An ... Show More
35m 50s
Jun 26
Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images
A spectacular new 10-year telescopic survey of the universe gets underway in Chile. Also, a project to create human chromosomes completely synthetically.Almost three decades ago Tony Tyson (now of UC Davis) and colleagues were standing in the control room of the world’s biggest ( ... Show More
37m 48s
Jun 19
Half a universe once lost now found
The universe is thought to consist of 70% Dark Energy, 25% Dark Matter, and just 5% Baryonic matter which is the atoms that make up you and me. At least, that’s what the models suggest. But a well-kept secret between astronomers and cosmologists for all these years has been that ... Show More
41m 41s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2021
Geoengineering The Planet
Geoengineering is already underway from Australia to the Arctic as scientists try to save places threatened by global heating. It’s time for a global conversation about how we research these powerful techniques, with agreements on how and where to deploy them. Global temperature ... Show More
27m 29s
Aug 2022
What do warmer waters mean for life below the waves?
The Ocean, it covers more than 70% of the surface if our planet, it provides us with food, medicine and even influences the weather. For years its also helped to mitigate the effects of climate change. Since the 1970’s over 90% of atmospheric warming caused by green house gas emi ... Show More
27m 22s
Feb 2021
Meeting Mars, Melting Ice, Ozone on the Mend Again, and A Sea Cacophany
Victoria Gill and guests discuss the signs and symptoms of melting ice and anthropogenic climate warming, illicit CFC production and the racket we make in the seas. As two robotic missions from UAE and China arrive at Mars , and a third from NASA arrives next week, UK astronaut T ... Show More
41m 9s
Feb 2022
Deep sea exploration
UCL oceanographer Helen Czerski explores life in the ocean depths with a panel of deep sea biologists. They take us to deep ocean coral gardens on sea mounts, to extraordinary hydrothermal vent ecosystems teeming with weird lifeforms fed by chemosynthetic microbes, to the remarka ... Show More
37m 22s
Mar 2023
Antarctic Ice Special
Sea ice coverage hit a recording-breaking low in the Antarctic this week, but what does this mean for the rest of the world? Why is the region so difficult to predict? And what could further changes in climate mean for the South Pole? Often the Arctic dominates conversations arou ... Show More
32m 17s
Aug 2016
Proxima b exoplanet, The Hunt for Vulcan, East Antarctic lakes, Deep sea shark hunting
The nearest habitable world beyond our Solar System might be right on our doorstep . Scientists say their investigations of our closest star, Proxima Centauri, show it to have an Earth-sized planet orbiting about it. What's more, it is moving in a zone that would make liquid wate ... Show More
28m 57s
Nov 2022
What peat can tell us about our future
The Congo Basin is home to the world’s largest peatland. Simon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science at UCL and the University of Leeds, tells Roland how peatlands all around the world are showing early alarm bells of change. From the boreal Arctic forests to the Amazon, Simo ... Show More
53m 36s
Jan 2022
Deep ocean exploration
UCL oceanographer Helen Czerski explores life in the ocean depths with a panel of deep sea biologists. They take us to deep ocean coral gardens on sea mounts, to extraordinary hydrothermal vent ecosystems teeming with weird lifeforms fed by chemosynthetic microbes, to the remarka ... Show More
37m 16s
Jul 2018
Peatbog wildfires, Coral acoustics, Magdalena Skipper, Fuelling long-term space travel
The wildfires on Saddleworth Moor may well be the most widespread in modern British history. Thanks to herculean efforts by Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and the military, they are now extinguished, though the peat continues to smoulder. Now the longer term ecologica ... Show More
31m 44s
Feb 2023
How can oceans help us capture carbon?
The ocean covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface and can hold more than 150 times the amount of carbon dioxide as air. Around a quarter of CO2 emissions created by human activity each year is absorbed by them. From phytoplankton to whales to seagrass meadows, we explore how this ... Show More
28m 8s