Above: The British isles and adjacent areas of western Europe (NASA).
The Prime Meridian newsletter is in part a personal log from the Editor. As the seasonal cycle unfolds in South East England, it recalls walks through town, parks and fields, hedgerows and woods. It notes history and current events in the local environment.
It was on the high ground above Greenwich and the Thames, that in 1675, under the orders of King Charles II, the Old Royal Observatory was established. It went on to play a vital role in developing maritime navigation and astronomy, and in 1884, an international conference in Washington DC confirmed that the world’s Prime Meridian should pass through the Greenwich site.
In the spirit of a slogan that appeared during the 1970s, namely that one should think globally and act locally, we look out from the Prime Meridian. Growing environmental challenges around the world and those in our region must be understood not as distant and unrelated, but linked inextricably into global geography.
It has taken decades for scientists and activists to put a “Climate Crisis” on the political agenda. That is welcome, although, we ask policy-makers, politicians, academics, journalists and campaigners to think in terms also of an “Earth Crisis.” This concept recognises that the threat to the Earth’s ecosphere (including human societies) is not one-dimensional, but involves numerous factors, which interact with each other in complex ways.
The history of Greenwich, encourages us to step back and see the Earth in its astronomical context. We are aware likewise of the ongoing search for other habitable worlds in the universe (research in which the editors have been active).
Editor: Dr Martin Heath. Editorial assistance: Penelope Stanford & Dr Laurance Doyle/
We are a transAtlantic collaboration whose principal collaborators are Dr. Laurance Doyle (U.S.A.) and Dr. Martin Heath (U.K.).
Our core research interest is what it takes to make a world habitable.
We are looking in particular at conditions that would enable a planet to sustain a forest biomass comparable to that of the Earth.
This provides a conceptual thermometer for assessing planetary habitability:
1) It throws a spotlight on the problem of defining what we mean by a truly "Earth-like" planet.
2) Organisms native to other planets may be radically different from those on Earth. This technique provides pointers to the adaptations that would be required by organisms if they
were to thrive in environments unlike those those on our home planet.
The Earth's great tropical forests appear as swathes of dark green in this distant view of our world taken by the NASA/NOAA DSCOVR satellite on Jan. 2, 2016.
ECOSPHERES PROJECT 