Tag Archives: climate change

Introducing climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis

Introducing climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis – readilearn

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Last month during Science Week, I had the pleasure of attending an address at the Shine Dome in Canberra given by the winner of the2019  ACT Scientist of the Year Award, climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis.

The ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Scientist of the Year Award ‘recognises the achievements of an up-and-coming local scientist with significant potential to continue to achieve in their chosen field of research.’

As tomorrow 21 September is the International Day of Peace and this year’s theme is Climate Action for Peace, I thought this was the perfect time to introduce you to Sophie.

About climate scientist Sophie Lewis

Dr Sophie Lewis received the 2019 award for research and the development of innovative techniques that are helping climate scientists the world over understand the impacts of climate change at the local, national and global level.

On her website, Sophie says “My primary research work involves investigating the contributions of human and natural influences to recent extreme climate events in Australia, such as heatwaves and floods.  Attribution studies are useful for understanding the potential risks and costs associated with future climatic changes. My interests are climate extremes, climate change and variability, and communicating climate change.

I am currently a Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (WG1, AR6) and a Domain Editor for WIREs Climate Change.”

Becoming a climate scientist

While I appreciate the importance of Dr Lewis’s research to the future of our planet, as an educator, what I enjoyed most about her talk was the story of her journey to becoming a scientist. I think all teachers and parents must be aware of the power their attitudes and actions have on the development of future scientists. Sharing and encouraging an interest in the world around them can have an enormous impact.

Continue reading: Introducing climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis – readilearn

Ice on the rocks flash fiction

Ice on the rocks

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This week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills discusses her daughter’s existence in the treeless landscape in the northernmost town in the world, Longyearbyen on Svalbard, Norway.

This video provides an introduction to Longyearbyen.

In her post, Charli warns that “The reality of climate change impacted the polar regions of our world first. Think of the Arctic as our canary in the coal mine … To say the Arctic is the canary means that our planet is changing so rapidly that species are dying.”

Evidence of those changes is discussed in this recent National Geographic article

and, while this video shows the changes to the Arctic sea ice from 1979 – 2018,

(Read information accompanying this video here.)

this article shows the situation updated to April 2019.

With the effects so evident, it is hard to fathom that there are still some who deny the climate is changing. To what end?

The phrase ‘on the rocks’ often refers to a beverage, usually alcoholic, served undiluted on ice. It can also refer to something in difficulty or failing. It was a combination of these meanings, minus the alcohol, I used in the title.

Charli Mills' flash fiction challenge Ice

Charli’s discussion introduced her flash fiction challenge to In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story without ice. It can be a world without ice or a summer camp that runs out of cubes for lemonade. What does the lack mean to the story? Go where the prompt leads!

I took it a little differently.

Let’s Hear it for Ice

A world without ice —

That made me think tw—

Two times.

 

A world without ice

Would not be so n—

Pleasant.

 

We couldn’t play games

With a six-sided d—

Numbered cube.

 

We couldn’t have fries

With a side-serve of r—

Food grain.

 

Our food would be bland

Without pinches of sp—

Flavour.

 

A world without ice

Where rule is by v—

Badness.

 

A world without ice

We’d all pay the pr—

Cost.

 

A world without ice

I’d say in a tr—

Moment.

 

A world without ice

I’d even say thr—

Three times

 

Would never

Could never

Be anything nice!

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