What If You Could Point at the Sky and Measure What Is Moving Inside It

Look up at a storm rolling in and the eye can only tell you so much. Dark clouds, maybe a visible shift in wind, but nothing about what’s actually happening inside that mass of moisture as it moves across the landscape. Radar changes that equation entirely. By sending out radio waves and listening for what bounces back, it becomes possible to see motion and structure inside weather systems that would otherwise stay completely hidden from anyone standing on the ground below. That same underlying technology doesn’t have to live permanently in one fixed location either. Advances in equipment design have … Continue reading →

Climate Change Impacts on Public Health: Perspectives for Arab World

Climate change is not only affecting the economies of Arab world but also having detrimental impacts on the very fabric of society, through threats to public health and livelihoods. Climate change in the Arab world is also exacerbating social inequalities, hitting the rural poor the hardest. This is not a reason for complacency amongst the wealthy urban classes. Basic humanitarianism aside, history suggests that physical hardships can breed wider unrest: a body of evidence suggests that poor harvests caused by a major Icelandic volcanic ash cloud in 1783 triggered no less an event that the French Revolution. Extreme weather events … Continue reading →