Record rain, winter deluges and hurricane dynamics
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Climate and energy news:
Shell chief goes cold on Arctic adventure asdrilling put on ice
Royal Dutch Shell has announced it will suspend drilling inArctic waters off Alaska. as part of a multibillion-dollar scalingback of spending on new projects. Two reasons are given in variousdifferent reports- the company iscutting costs, and awaiting the results of anenvironmental court case challenging Shell’s right to drill in theregion.
UK floods: January rain breaks records in parts ofEngland
Parts of England have had their wettest January sincerecords began more than 100 years ago, according to figures fromthe Met Office. In Somerset, the military remains on standby tohelp flooded areas.
EU Parliament sets up clash over aviationemissions
European Union negotiators face a clash with member statesover whether to make all airlines using EU airports pay for theiremissions. Parliament’s environment committee has backed plans tocharge carriers for part of their journeys, but some of Europe’smost powerful countries and international airlines strongly opposethe proposals.
Climate and energy comment:
Winter deluges may become the norm forBritain
Britain will see greater rainfall in the next two decades,with a maximum of 12 per cent more rainfall and an average rise of4 per cent, according to a report on the regional impacts ofclimate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.This means Britain should brace itself for “even soggier winters inthe future”, the Telegraph says.
Sources of Methane Emissions Still Uncertain:Study
From 1999 to 2006, methane concentrations in the atmospherestopped increasing after more than a decade of strong growth, thenstarted rising again. Researchers from the ‘University of London’are trying to solve the puzzle as to why.
RIP ECO
Companies have pulled the plug on all the country’s solidwall insulation schemes as a result of cuts applied to the EnergyCompany Obligation (ECO), a government energy efficiency scheme,according to Labour MP Alan Whitehead. But the market for ECO andthe government’s Green Deal may expandsignificantly this year,according to a new report.
Britain needs more nuclear not fracking, saysIEA
The UK should consider building more nuclear power plantsand should not expect cheap energy prices to come from a US-style”revolution” in shale oil and gas, according to Fatih Birol, chiefeconomist at the at the International Energy Agency. Birol isinterviewed in the Telegraph. Andrew Critchlow,Daily Telegraph
New climatescience:
Glacial mass balance changes in the Karakoram andHimalaya
A glimpse into the future of Himalayan and Karakorumglaciers finds that if emissions stay high, the amount of ice theglaciers hold is set to decrease six-fold, with 27 per cent of theglaciers facing eventual disappearance by the end of thecentury.
The Dynamics of Hurricane RiskPerception
Bulletin of the American MeteorologicalSociety
As hurricanes Isaac and Sandy approached coastal cities inthe United States in 2012, residents under-estimated the potentialdamage from winds and mistakenly assumed the greatest threat wouldcome from wind rather than water, according to new research. Withhurricanes expected to get more intense with climate change, thescientists discuss how public understanding could beimproved.