Weighing the Earth In the 18th century what lay beneath the Earth’s surface was hotly debated. Was the Earth hollow or solid? Was its interior full of ocean waters that entered through deep chasms, filled with fermenting mud, or were Earth’s subterranean realms inhabited by strange creatures and spirits, as in the Celtic mythology of […]

How many global deaths will COVID-19 cause? In a recently published paper (Autumn 2020 issue of The Edinburgh Geologist, pp9-16) Professor Roy Thompson shows how he applied a geomathematical technique to forecasting the likely number of deaths from COVID-19. This tried and tested approach has been extensively used previously with great success by energy-modellers and […]

Traffic flow in Edinburgh Summary Traffic flow in Edinburgh is slowly rising again. Automated monitoring of movement along the City Bypass is providing an excellent time-series for calibrating the improvement in air pollution during the Covid lockdown. Data from Transport Scotland’s Automatic Traffic Counter. Note the pronounced weekend effect. Traffic volume was already well down […]

Webinar: Environmental impact of the Covid19 lockdown and air pollution in Edinburgh Summary The EVERYONE project considers the environmental impact of the Covid19 lockdown on Edinburgh Webinar In the webinar  curator Dr Stacey Hunter and weaver Ben Hymers are  joined by their scientific collaborator Professor Roy Thompson to talk through their data-derived tapestry project ‘EVERYONE’. […]

Slides of my talk to the Scottish Wildlife Trust on ‘Effect of climate change on Wildlife’ are available here Lecture to Scottish Wildlife Trust “On behalf of the Lothians Branch Scottish Wildlife Trust I wanted to thank you again for the excellent talk which you delivered to us last night. It was challenging, thought provoking […]