Episode #38: Jamie Woodward - Understanding climate change during the Quaternary and microplastic transport and storage in river catchments

This week John spoke to Professor Jamie Woodward from the University of Manchester about two key global issues; our developing understanding of climate change during the Quaternary and microplastic transport and storage in river catchments.

Both are major examples of how physical geography research has impacted on national and global policy. Jamie’s research on microplastics in rivers is now feeding directly into the Parliamentary Inquiry into Water Quality in Rivers.

Jamie Woodward is Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Manchester.  

Thanks to Collins for sponsoring series 6 of GeogPod.

Links from the pod

The Ice Age: A Very Short Introduction

Microplastics in Rivers

Jamie's Ted Talk, 'Changing Rivers'

Free resources

Quaternary ice age poster from Geography Review

 

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the Keeling Curve and the carbon cycle

 

Full text view-only version of the Nature Sustainability paper

 

This work was discussed on the BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science

 

Film clip here from the BBC News report

 

Guardian article

 

Policy at Manchester blog that explores some of the policy implications of this work