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Through the use of two case studies: the Dawlish Railway Collapse and the East Coast Tidal Surge, this resource looks at the impacts of the 2013/2014 winter storms. The extreme weather conditions that led to these events are examined, the impacts on people and the environment are assessed and ways to improve future resilience to coastal flooding and extreme weather hazards in the UK are explored.
In the winter of 2013/2014 the UK was hit by a succession of 13 low pressure systems causing extreme flooding on the Somerset Levels. This DVD looks at the human and physical causes of the floods and explores the impacts on property and lives through the first hand accounts of local residents and businesses. We also assess examples of both hard and soft engineering and see how they are being used to improve resilience to future flood events on the Levels. Dredging, pumping, tidal barriers and catchment sensitive farming are all considered.
Use this resource to encourage students to judge whether or not climate change will impact upon people differently around the world. The impacts of climate change can be quite hard to see in the UK, but as our fantastic footage from the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland, Africa, the Alps, Bangladesh, India and China shows, it's all too much of a reality for the poorest and most vulnerable. The DVD also provides clear explanations of the processes that can cause climate change and gets students engaged in the debate about the extent to which these are caused naturally or are the result of human activity.
From floating neighborhoods to massive harbor floodgates, cities around the world are engineering ways to cope with extreme weather events.
Violent stormy weather is a natural outcome of climate change and a warmer planet. WEATHER GONE WILD is about changing the way we live in order to survive a world of superstorms.
WEATHER GONE WILD explores recent extreme weather events and the scientific projections of what we can expect over the next few decades. What can we do to give ourselves the best chance of protecting our homes and families from the weather's devastating effects?
The documentary travels to Calgary, Toronto, New York, Miami, and Rotterdam to detail the dangers of the destructive new weather patterns, and shows the innovative plans in each city trying to engineer their way to a safer future. Everything from farming to the insurance industry to building codes will have to change. How can -- and must -- the average citizen adapt their life to Weather Gone Wild?
Extreme weather events can cause widespread damage resulting in billions of dollars of losses. Recent events, such as blizzards, hurricanes, and droughts have been exceptionally devastating as a result of several environmental factors. The convergence of several weather systems and the right atmospheric conditions sometimes result in the perfect storm. This issue examines the factors behind catastrophic weather. It explains El Nino and La Nina, which are instigators of many unusual climactic events around the globe. These phenomena impact ocean temperatures, wind patterns and other atmospheric conditions. Other intense storms, such as Hurricane Sandy, result from the interaction of low pressure systems, which affect the direction and strength of the storm.
Why do novice surfers prefer constructive waves? What happens when you take away a village's natural sea defences? Filmed along the dorset coastline, this resource provides up-to-date explanations and examples of the processes and landforms that shape coastal environments, bringing the subject alive through interviews with surfers, coastal surveyors and environmentalists. The programme uses a systems approach and explores the role of littoral cells and sediment movement. Illustrated landforms include: Lulworth Cove, Old Harry, Studland Bay, Sandbanks, Slapton Ley, Hallsands and Portland Bill.
Discover The Wonders of Our Earth and the forces and life forms that shape our world with the Earth Science Series. Designed specifically for the middle and high school science classroom, this series introduces students to the various geologic forces and physiographic regions that have shaped our planet. A catastrophic 1982 rainstorm triggered 18,000 landslides in the Bay area, claiming 25 lives and causing $66 million n property damage. The combination of steep slopes, weak rocks and intense winter storms make the Bay area uplands an ideal setting for landslides. Landslides include both swift, potentially deadly debris flows and slower, but destructive deepseated slides. Students will learn what USGS scientists have discovered about landslide dynamics and which slopes are most susceptible to sliding. Discover the devastating stories of the Bay area residents and learn to recognize the danger signs.
Across the world, extreme weather events are affecting local conditions. Some areas are getting drier and hotter, while others are getting wetter, as floods are becoming more frequent and more extreme. While formal weather records going back 150 years indicate wildly varying climates, conditions have never changed as rapidly as they are changing now.
Areas such as the Horn of Africa are suffering severe droughts brought on by seasonal changes, climate change, political troubles and population increases. Those worst affected by droughts are reduced to eating boiled flowers. The effects of famine are felt for generations.
With average temperatures rising globally, floods are becoming more frequent and prolonged. This episode reviews the effects of floods, and discusses the measures being taken to prevent or combat these effects in Italy, Argentina, Bangladesh and The Netherlands.
Storms manifest as Hurricanes, Cyclones, Sandstorms, Sea Storms and Tornadoes. Some geographic locations are more susceptible to cyclogenesis and the resulting devastation. Sailors participating in the Sydney to Hobart Race are often at the mercy of severe storms, and parts of America and India have been seriously affected by Hurricanes in the last decade.
With extraordinary footage shot during and after Bangladesh's most recent cyclone, this resource looks at the causes, impacts and management of tropical storms in an LEDC. It provides clear explanations of the physical causes of cyclones and the social, economic and environmental impacts are told through first hand accounts of those affected. It then provides examples of management strategies to reduce both the short and long term impacts of cyclones through better monitoring, prediction, disaster relief and poverty alleviation schemes.
This material is recommended by Cambridge International Examinations in the resource list for Cambridge International AS and A Level Geography 9696.
Take a ride with a storm chaser and follow a twister, then create one yourself on a kitchen counter. What makes Tornado Alley perfect for tornadoes to form?
DVD / 2008 / (Elementary, Senior High) / 28 minutes
Directed by Brenda Longfellow
A report from the front lines of climate change in Kenya, India, Canada, the Arctic, China, and Montana where peoples' lives have already been dramatically altered.
Climate change is already here. In another decade, the damage will be irreversible.
Weather Report is a sneak peek into the future. This year-long road trip takes us around the world, to places where global warming is having an immediate effect. We meet people for whom climate change already has life-and-death implications.
In India, city planners brace for more flooding disasters. In northern Kenya, tree-planting activists try to fend off the extreme drought that is sparking armed conflict over water and land. In the Canadian Arctic, elders are baffled by unpredictable weather patterns and animal behavior.
Many of the characters we meet are tireless fighters. People like Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Maathai, whose Green Belt Movement marries conservation with community economic growth. A few years ago, Maathai was beaten by private security guards while protecting a forest. Now she's an assistant minister in the Kenyan government. Half a world away, in northern Canada, firebrand activist Sheila Watt- Cloutier fights to protect Inuit human rights against the impacts of climate change. Cloutier grew up riding dog sleds and hunting seals, a way of life disappearing for social but also climatic reasons. As head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, she mounts a case that emissions from the US are a violation of the rights of the Inuit and other northern peoples whose cultures are being destroyed.
Weather Report brings us the powerful human stories of people whose lives have already been dramatically altered by the global crisis that will soon affect us all. It suggests that the weather is telling us that the current model of economic growth is not sustainable.
The areas of the earth with low amounts of annual rainfall maintain a fragile balance of life, a balance that human exploitation often tilts toward the side of permanent desertification.
Learning Objectives:
1) Terminology used to discuss drought and the process of desertification will be introduced.
2) Lands that are in danger of becoming deserts will be discussed and the particular conditions that threaten these areas will be identified.
3) It will be shown that the impact of people on the land is often more detrimental to its productivity than are changes in climate.
Shows that global warming is already hurting the Pacific Islands.
" We are like the warning system for the whole world to see." Penehuro Lefale, Samoa
For 7 million people living on thousands of islands scattered across the Pacific ocean, global warming is not something that looms in the distant future: it's a threat whose first effects may have already begun.
Through personal stories of Pacific Islanders, RISING WATERS: Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific Islands puts a human face on the international climate change debate.
The majority of scientists around the world now agree that global warming is real, and key studies show that the tropical Pacific islands will be hit first and hardest by its effects. The water temperature in the tropical Pacific has risen dramatically over the last two decades, bleaching coral and stressing marine ecosystems. Sea level rise threatens to inundate islands, and extreme weather events -- such as more frequent and intense El Ninos, severe droughts, and mega hurricanes -- could wipe out ecosystems and the way of life that has existed for thousands of years.
"Way before most of these islands go under, they're going to lose their fresh water supply." Anginette Heffernan, Fiji
In the program, islanders show the viewers the physical and cultural impacts caused by global warming. Unusual high tides have swept the low-lying atolls of Micronesia, destroying crops and polluting fresh water supplies. Ancestral graveyards are being destroyed by the impacts of rogue waves and erosion never witnessed before the last decade. An increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes is making it difficult for island communities and ecosystems to recover.
"It's very difficult for someone living in the United States to grasp the fact that if the sea level rises just a few feet, a whole nation will disappear." Ben Graham, Republic of the Marshall Islands
But the islanders' stories have not convinced everyone in the rest of the world. Some scientists refute the studies, and business leaders and economists warn that forcing industries to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions will cause a global economic collapse.
While the policy makers and scientists argue about when and how much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next twenty years, many Pacific Islanders are wondering if they will have a future. One thing is known: the longer emission reductions are delayed, the harder it will be to curb the effects of global warming, and prevent sea level rise from devastating the Pacific Islands.
What, then, should the islanders do? Whom should they believe? Where would they go if forced to leave their homes? RISING WATERS explores what it means to live under a cloud of scientific uncertainty, examining both human experience and expert scientific evidence. The problems facing the islanders serve as an urgent warning to the rest of the world.
Locations include Kiribati, the Samoas, Hawai'I, the atolls of Micronesia including the Marshall Islands, as well as laboratories and research centers in the continental United States. RISING WATERS weaves the portraits of the islanders with historical film and video materials, interviews with top scientists, and voiceover. 3D animation is used to illustrate key scientific concepts.