Flood polls, ministerial job cuts, and volcanic influence on rainfall
News
Linking the floods with climate change – and why
it’s important
Climate and energy news:
Donald Trump loses court battle against offshore
wind farm
Donald Trump has lost a court battle to stop an offshore
wind farm development close to his Scottish golf course. Trump
wanted a judicial review of the Scottish government’s decision to
approve the development without a public inquiry. But Lord Doherty
rejected the Trump Organisation’s claims and dismissed allegations
of bias levelled at Alex Salmond. Trump says he is planning to
switch focus to a new golf course in Ireland.
Hundreds of railway lines could be
destroyed
Rising sea levels and storm surges threaten to destroy hundreds of
railway lines up and down the UK, according to an expert engineer.
Lines between Sellafield and Maryport, at Flimby, Parton and
Kirkby-in-Furness in Cumbria, at Margate in Kent, at Sheringham in
Norfolk, at Saltburn in North Yorkshire, and at Towyn and Barmouth
in North Wales are among those at risk from rising sea levels
caused by climate change.
Climate and energy comment:
3 reasons why David Cameron must get rid of Owen
Paterson
Green group Greenpeace is calling for the environment minister
Owen Paterson to be fired. The group says Paterson is to blame
because he allowed the Environment Agency’s flooding budget to be
cut after the Committee on Climate Change caused it to be
increased, and ignored the risk that climate change will cause more
flooding and extreme weather events.
Tidal lagoons versus nuclear power stations. A
closer comparison than you might think
Entrepreneur Mark Shorrock has submitted a planning
application for a Swansea tidal lagoon, as Carbon Brief has
discussed here. In the short term, Horrock has
asked for government support at the same level as offshore wind in
order to get the project going. The technology could compete with
nuclear, both in terms of cost and the amount of energy it
produces, Goodall concludes.
21 Pictures Of Politicians In Wellies Staring At
Floods
UK politicians can’t do much about the floods. But they can
look at it while wearing wellies.
Wind power does affect the climate, and not always
how you’d think
Doubling the present European wind capacity by 2020 could
cause a couple of percent changes in rain and a few tenths of a
degree of temperature, according to a new study. These effects
include a mix of more rain and less rain, and warming and cooling,
depending on where you are around Europe.
Floods should be sharp reminder to climate
sceptics of risks – Spelman
Former conservative environment secretary Caroline Spelman
tells the Guardian “What is happening now [on flooding] relates to
what we were doing two decades ago [in increasing greenhouse gas
emissions].” Meanwhile Labour leader Ed Miliband has
saidclimate change will bring “more
extreme weather events”. David Cameron reassertedhis commitment to
tackling climate change, but said the current focus should be on
the flood relief effort.
The ‘pause’ in global warming is not even a
thing
A recent study found that climate models had not been geared
to account for the current two decade-long period of strong trade
winds in the Pacific. The study explains one single measure of
climate change – the temperatures on the surface averaged out
across the entire globe – might not have been rising quite so
quickly as some thought they might.
New climate science:
Reconciling disagreement over climate-conflict
results in Africa
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences
Can rising local temperatures be associated with an increase
in civil unrest? Seemingly contradictory results in the literature
suggest the question is unresolved but a new paper argues the two
key papers that prompted the dispute are consistent with each
other, and that the climate-conflict relationship holds.
Volcanic influence on European summer
precipitation through monsoons
Scientists have found that in the year following a major
volcanic eruption, weakening of the Asian and African monsoons
means that Europe gets a particularly rainy summer. This helps to
explain 1816’s “Year Without a Summer”, the cause of which has
remained elusive until now, say the researchers.