New £20 million research programme to deepen understanding of Africa’s changing climate
A UK government-funded initiative will put £20 million behind research to better understand Africa’s changing climate and the use of climate change information in decision-making across the continent. Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) is supporting five major research projects to develop better climate information for Africa and to test how the new information could be used in decision-making. Dr John Marsham from the University of Leeds is leading the HyCRISTAL project, which addresses East Africa, while fellow researchers from the University’s School of Earth and Environment are taking key roles in the projects addressing West Africa (AMMA2050), southern Africa (UMFULA) and modelling African climate (IMPALA). FCFA is a joint programme of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and Natural Environment Research Council.
‘One size fits all’ when it comes to unravelling how stars form
Observations led by astronomers at the University of Leeds have shown for the first time that a massive star, 25 times the mass of the Sun, is forming in a similar way to low-mass stars. The discovery, made using a new state-of-the-art telescope called the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which is based in Chile, South America, was published online on 29 October by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
