Geopolitical bodies and the production of internationalities
Cesar Martinez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
4.00 (25 min talk + 20 min discussion)
This presentation addresses new ways to understand and analyze international academic mobility. It is inspired by postcritical theories and seeks to demobilize fixed notions operating in international education and internationalization policies. Contextualized in knowledge economy era, the university is considered a corporative mechanism by globalization process and students as consumers of broader scales of excellence. Disembodied practices have been provoking unequal and static cartographies worldwide – producing difference and ranking spaces and subjects. Arguments use theoretical reflections about scale, movement and affect to denaturalize lineal relations between subjects and territories, as well as denounce how these discourses and practices sustain embodied geopolitics.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: detecting slowdown due to climate change
Emma Worthington University of Southampton
4.45 (25 min talk + 20 min discussion)
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is the northward flow of warm, salty water in the upper layers and the southward flow of dense, cold, deep layers. It transports around 25% of the heat carried poleward by both atmosphere and ocean, much of which is lost to the atmosphere at higher latitudes, and helps make the climate of north-west Europe more temperate. It also plays a vital role in the transport of fresh water and carbon in the North Atlantic. Changes in the AMOC are thus likely to affect climate both locally and further afield. Climate models show that a decline in the AMOC, related to anthropogenic global warming, is likely by the end of this century.
The AMOC has been observed since 2004 by a system of moorings at 26ºN in the North Atlantic, between North Africa and the Bahamas. It is typified by high variability, or ‘noise’, on short timescales, which makes identifying longer-term trends, such as climate change-related slowdown, very challenging. AMOC variability may be reduced, and detection times improved, by combining it with other ocean signals with better signal-to-noise ratios. Noise may also be reduced by taking measurements as close to the boundary, i.e., the sea-bed, as possible, particularly on the western boundary where there is a great deal of eddy-related variability.
Seminar: Martinez & Worthington 11th Oct 2018