News Commentary — May 20, 2013

Snow covered fields in County Durham, December 16, 2011

So this is what the BBC’s audience gets in return for the corporation’s extortionate and mandatory licence fees. After nearly 15 years, a belated admission that global warming isn’t quite the looming threat that they had warned about.

Although, of course, the BBC isn’t quite so open in acknowledging its error. If indeed it was an error and not deliberate disinformation.

Instead, the BBC claims that “Since 1998, there has been an unexplained ‘standstill’ in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.”

In other words there has been no significant global warming. Despite relentless BBC attempts to persuade us otherwise and its quibbling admission that “there has been an unexplained ‘standstill’” in the process.

All of which is a disingenuous way of saying that “global warming” maybe something of a non-event. Like Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, another impending threat that the BBC had relentlessly reported on and which ultimately turned out to be entirely non-existent.

This is hardly news though. Only the fact that the Corporations has acknowledged an “unexplained standstill” is noteworthy. After all, recent winters have been some of the harshest in decades so this “standstill” in global warming has been self-evident.

Or at least it should be to anyone who don’t accept all they’re told by the corporate media without question.

Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming ‘not as likely’

Matt McGrath — BBC Online May 19, 2013

The impacts of rising temperatures are being felt particularly in the polar regions, says the BBC caption.

Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term.

Since 1998, there has been an unexplained “standstill” in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades.

But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly.

The slowdown in the expected rate of global warming has been studied for several years now. Earlier this year, the UK Met Office lowered their five-year temperature forecast.

But this new paper gives the clearest picture yet of how any slowdown is likely to affect temperatures in both the short-term and long-term.

An international team of researchers looked at how the last decade would impact long-term, equilibrium climate sensitivity and the shorter term climate response.

Transient nature

Continues …

Louise Gray — Telegraph.co.uk May 15, 2013

Wind and rain hit the west of Britain through Tuesday, with local surface flooding in Wales, the west country and the west midlands.

In some areas on high ground like Dartmoor, the wintry showers turned to snow.

Sheila Coates, from Princetown, told BBC Radio Devon: “It’s crazy. When I went to bed last night I couldn’t see out of my front window for the snow.

“I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never known weather like it at this time of year.”

Two inches of snow also fell in Shropshire overnight and up to three inches of rain in places.

Floods alerts were issued by the Environment Agency for Wales, the South West and the Midlands.

Gales in the South West of up to 65mph brought down trees and caused blackouts.

Western Power Distribution said power cuts had affected nearly 1,800 homes in Penzance, Cornwall.

The winds are expected to die down on Wednesday but the weather will remain wet and cool for this time of year.

Showers are forecast for most of the country with more heavy downpours of up to half an inch in an hour possible, especially in the west of the country and the north. On Friday there is more likely to be showers in the east. On high ground showers could turn wintry.

The temperature will remain a few degrees below normal at around 16 or 17C in the south and 12 to 15C in the north. It will feel even colder in the rain.

Scotland is on alert for floods on Saturday.

The unsettled weather is expected to last into this weekend and half term at the end of next week.

Source

THE UK experienced the coldest Easter Day on record after the temperature plunged to nearly -13°C in Scotland.

The previous coldest since modern records began in 1960 was Easter Monday in 1986, when it was -9.8°C.

But temperatures dropped yesterday to -12.5°C in Braemar, in the Highlands.

Forecasters are warning the cold spell is showing no signs of disappearing and could last well into this month.

Martin Munro, of the Met Office, said: “Having a cold Easter is not too unusual as some do fall in March, but we are seeing temperatures colder than average this year.”

The record comes after March was provisionally declared the coldest since 1962 in the UK.

The Met Office said that from March 1 to 26 the UK mean temperature was 2.5°C, three degrees below the long-term average.

Snow has caused major disruption to parts of the country, including in west Scotland, where 18,000 homes lost power in Argyll, Arran and Dumfries and Galloway.

All properties affected by last weekend’s severe snowfall have now been reconnected to the main power grid.

Mr Munro said the low temperatures would continue, with temperatures of about 6°C expected today in Scottish cities.

He said: “It will continue to be chilly and fairly dry, with some flurries of snow in the east of the country.”

Source

Little more than 13 years-ago the Independent was warning “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past“, as the global warming alarmists through their lackeys in the corporate media declared “snow is starting to disappear from our lives“.

How things have changed.  That prediction was confidently made in the Independent in March 2000. Since then however, a series of severe winters have seen snow in abundance and record low temperatures.

As more reports like the one below have appeared in recent winters, the notion of “global warming” has begun to sound increasingly hollow.

So much so that even its advocates have changed their language. Whereas 5 to 10 years ago the term “global warming” was often referred to, its promoters now refer to “climate change” instead. If only because in recent years it has become obvious that we have not experienced anything like the “global warming” that had once been predicted.

Coldest March in Sheffield for over a century

The Star – March 27, 2013

MARCH was the coldest in Sheffield for more than a century, new statistics have revealed.

City residents are still shivering, gritting their paths and de-icing the car each morning despite the supposed start of spring.

Now data compiled by the Museums Sheffield Weather Station at Weston Park shows we’ve had a right to grumble.

This month has in fact had the lowest monthly average March temperature since 1883 – and the second coldest average March temperature ever recorded.

The average temperature was a chilly 2.4C.

On the coldest day this month a minimum temperature of -4C was recorded.

This means 2013 has had the 31st coldest March minimum on record.

The maximum temperature recorded was only 9.3C, giving 2013 the lowest March maximum temperature since March 1996 and the second lowest monthly March maximum on record.

Piles of the white stuff also meant the city has also had the deepest March snow – with 21 centimetres falling – in over 30 years and the fourth deepest ever since regular recordings for this statistic began in the 1940s.

According to the weather station’s records, over the last 50 years it has also snowed in March more often than it hasn’t, about 60 per cent of the time.

The weather station has agreed to share its monthly data reports with Star readers each month.

Watch out for the next report in April.

Source

Blizzards and freezing temperatures were expected to continue through the weekend as some areas of the country woke up to a foot snow on the ground.

A major undersea gas pipeline shut down unexpectedly on Friday, pushing prices up by 50 per cent to a record high and forcing suppliers to eat into the country’s limited gas reserves.

Britain has less than 36 hours of gas reserves remaining and with severe cold weather forecast over the weekend, energy demand is unlikely to abate.

The Met Office has put a level 3 cold weather alert in place until Monday morning, warning that heavy snow and cold temperatures posed a particular risk to vulnerable elderly people.

It said that strong winds are also expected to contribute to the harsh conditions. Sleet and snow is due to spread from the south west, bringing significant snowfall to the Midlands and north of England over the weekend.

It is expected to be the coldest Spring weekend for 50 years, with temperatures reaching -7C (18.4F) in some areas on Saturday.

Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch, the energy consultant, said if the unseasonable weather continued for the next two to three weeks “rationing would be inevitable, for businesses and domestic users”.

Officials have insisted, however, that it will not be necessary to ration gas and Downing Street has said it is confident that supplies will not run out.

Charles Hendry, the former energy and climate change minister, also dismissed fears of gas rationing, insisting that there were still plentiful supplies coming into terminals in Wales and on the Thames.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change added: “In the unlikely event of a gas supply emergency, Government and industry have in place well rehearsed plans to ensure that gas supplies can continue, so that consumers would not be cut off.”

The warnings of gas shortages were raised when a water pump failed at one of the three underwater pipelines that connect the UK to gas supplies coming from Europe.

The pipeline from Belgium to Bacton, Norfolk, which has the capacity to supply around a fifth of the UK’s gas needs, was immediately shut down by its operator Interconnector UK.

The fault was repaired and the pipeline returned to operation after a few hours.

Flow data from the National Grid showed that supply from the pipeline stopped early on Friday morning but had returned to normal by Friday evening.

Nick Butler, a former vice president for strategy and policy development at BP and chair of the Kings Policy Institute at Kings College London, said there was a need for more gas storage in this country.

Currently Britain has storage capacity for 20 days of gas, while France and Germany both have storage to supply gas for around 100 days.

Mr Butler said: “It strikes me that this is a quite unnecessary crisis. If we had put in place enough storage over the past few years, the price increase that occurred for a few hours yesterday wouldn’t have happened and we wouldn’t be talking about even the possibility of people being cut off.”

“We could easily build more storage. If the weather stays bad and anything else happens to the interconnector we will be facing real difficulties. It is unnecessary.”

The worries over the nations gas supplies came as hundreds of thousands of homes around the country were left without power on Friday night and Saturday morning.

Engineers were still working to restore power to around 41,000 homes on Saturday morning after high winds, snow and ice brought down power cables.

Wintry conditions also closed 400 schools and several roads on Friday with further travel disruption expected on Saturday.

The Met Office issued severe weather warnings for the Midlands and the North.

On higher ground there will be up to a foot of snow, and as far south as Oxford will see two and a half inches throughout the day.

The Met Office warned: “The public should be aware of the potential for severe disruption to transport and to power supplies.”

London and the South East are expected to experience snow showers, with little chance of any accumulations. A severe warning was also issued for the South West, where two and a half inches of rain in 24 hours brought widespread flooding yesterday.

The snow will peter out, but the bitter easterly winds will continue to batter Britain throughout Sunday and into next week, meaning that temperatures will continue to feel below zero.

Andrew Sibley, a Met Office forecaster, said: “There is no end in sight to the cold weather.”

Source  

• Snow set to fall across North and Scotland as Britain’s cold snap continues

Today is officially the first day of spring – but it will bring little respite to freezing Britain as snow continues to fall, closing schools and causing chaos on the roads.

The country is on track to suffer its coldest March in more than 50 years as conservationists warned that the prolonged winter weather was damaging wildlife.

The unrelenting cold weather is showing no signs of slowing this week as snow continues to fall across the North.

Today is the vernal equinox, traditionally regarded as the end of winter and the day that spring arrives, but the news could come as a surprise to Britons affected by the snow and cold.

More light snow will settle throughout the day in the north-east of England and eastern Scotland, adding to large amounts of up to 10cm which hit the regions yesterday.

Higher ground will see up to another 5cm, while lower areas could see around 2cm – along with parts of Northern Ireland and Wales.

The Midlands and Lincolnshire should also prepare for the risk of light snow today.

Biting temperatures of around just 1C will keep their hold on the North and rise just a few degrees in the Midlands. Further south they will hit highs of around 9C in Devon.

The Met Office has warned the public to take care in potentially icy conditions because of the low temperatures.

But Friday will see a return of heavier snow storms, which will spread further south to the Midlands.

The Central England Temperature – covering an area bounded by Lancashire, Bristol and London – shows temperatures have been 2.8C lower than normal for the month.

The last time March was so cold was in 1962, when the average temperature was 2.4C (36F) – or 4.1C below the norm.

A forecaster at MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: ‘It’s another cold day in a very cold week.

‘There will be more snow in the north but not as heavy as yesterday, though there is a risk it will move slightly lower than yesterday down to the Midlands and through Lincolnshire.

‘But there is a chance of more heavy snow in the north on Friday, which at the moment looks like it could also hit parts of the Midlands.’

Blizzards which hit Scotland yesterday closed dozens of schools and caused hazardous conditions on the roads.

Source

De rigueur though it may be to describe Sir David Attenborough as a “national treasure” and our “greatest living naturalist”, it really is time he was called to account for the shameless way in which he has allowed himself to be made the front-man for one particular propaganda campaign that has stood all genuine scientific evidence on its head. Last week yet another report picked up on the part Sir David has played in promoting what the facts show to have been no more than a colossal scare story.

It is now seven years since Sir David was first wheeled out by the BBC as the main cheerleader in its campaign to whip up panic over man-made global warming. In two documentaries, he presented himself as a one-time “climate sceptic” who had now been convinced by the evidence. The only problem was that, as he repeated a series of familiar alarmist mantras, there was little sign that he had checked the evidence for any of them: not least his claim that, thanks to the melting of Arctic ice, the world’s polar bear population, already down by a quarter, could be facing extinction.

Pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth had already made polar bears the most iconic image for their crusade to save the planet. WWF, in its relentless pursuit of funds, was moving on from pandas to appealing to the public to “pay £3 a month to adopt a polar bear”.

Vainly, in the face of this avalanche of propaganda, did an array of experts and bodies such as the US National Biological Service and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature point out that, thanks to curbs on hunting in the Seventies, the world’s polar bear population had, in fact, risen from 10,000 in 1966 to 25,000 or more in 2006; that all but one of their 19 main groups were significantly increasing in numbers; and that, based on observed data rather than highly questionable computer models, there was not a shred of evidence of any threat to the bears from climate change.

Al Gore twice famously fell flat on his face in promoting the cause, first when his film An Inconvenient Truth focused on the fate of four bears that were later shown just to have drowned in a storm; then when he made big play with a picture of two bears on a half-melted iceberg, which the photographer later protested she had only taken because it was a striking image, unconnected in any way with climate change.

But although Al Gore may have been notoriously reckless in misusing evidence, he has no pretensions to being a scientist. Sir David’s reputation, on the other hand, is that of a man with respect for science, although this did not prevent him in 2009 from supporting a ridiculous BBC publicity stunt involving a giant blow-up plastic polar bear floating down the Thames, or making polar bears a key feature of his Frozen Planet series in 2011, ending in a propaganda pitch for global-warming alarmism that somehow managed to overlook the fact that polar sea ice had recently been greater in extent than at any time in 30 years.

When, last week, the Global Warming Policy Foundation published a new report, Ten Good Reasons Not to Worry About Polar Bears, Matt (now Lord) Ridley referred in his foreword to Sir David’s bizarre determination to ignore the evidence. The report’s author, Susan Crockford, an experienced Canadian polar bear expert, explains just why there is no connection between the thriving polar bear population and climate change, and how this has been concocted into one of the great urban myths of our time.

Nothing is going to stand in the way of Sir David’s reputation as a national treasure, even though it rests so largely on the extraordinary skill of the cameramen who make his documentaries so memorable. But for his readiness to lend his immense prestige to a scare story that defies all the evidence he deserves no respect at all.

Source

The BBC has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown over climate change claims made in Sir David Attenborough’s groundbreaking Africa series.

In the last episode of the series, entitled ‘Future’, Sir David discussed the challenges facing the region.

Speaking over footage of Mount Kilimanjaro, Sir David made the assertion that ‘some parts of the continent have become 3.5C hotter in the past 20 years’.

However, figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that since 1850 global temperatures have risen by 0.76C, causing widespread concern among viewers.

The comment, first broadcast in the final episode of the Africa series last Wednesday, was removed from Sunday night’s repeat of the show.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘There is widespread acknowledgement within the scientific community that the climate of Africa has been changing as stated in the programme.

‘We accept the evidence for 3.5 degrees increase is disputable and the commentary should have reflected that. 

‘Therefore that line has been removed from Sunday’s repeat and the iPlayer version replaced.’

Many took to Twitter to dispute the fact, asking where the data came from.

The BBC initially defended the claim, saying it was taken from a report by Oxfam and the New Economics Foundation, but in turn this report suggested the figure had come from a report by Christian Aid.

This report however, says the data came from a ‘conversation with authors; February 2006,’ and the report’s authors have not responded to question over its validity.

Experts have also questioned the figure, with Dr Tim Osborn of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit telling the Guardian: So I would say that our data do not support the claim of 3.5 degC warming in the last 20 years in some regions of Africa.

A BBC source told The Times that the mistake was made by the production team and not by Sir David, who told them he did not know how it ended up in the script.

The six-week wildlife series showed stunning footage of life on the continent. 

‘The mistake was being so specific.

‘It should have been more carefully scripted,’ the source said.

In 2006, Sir David admitted that he used to be a sceptic but now believed it is one of the major challenged facing the world.

‘I was sceptical about climate change,’ he said.

‘I think conservationists have to be careful in saying things are catastrophic when, in fact, they are less than catastrophic.

‘But I’m no longer sceptical.

‘Now I do not have any doubt at all.

‘I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world.

‘I have waited until the proof was conclusive that it was humanity changing the climate.’

In the final episode of Africa he also focused on the threat of the growing population, with farmland expanding at the expense of wildlife.

Later in the episode, Sir David said Africa was ‘the world’s hottest continent and there is no doubt it’s getting warmer’.

He also said that 80 per cent of the permanent icefields at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, had disappeared and ‘soon it will be free of ice altogether’.

The show had previously come under fire for accusations that its Africa series manipulated viewers by exaggerating ‘emotional’ scenes from nature.

Sir David Attenborough’s latest venture left many animal-lovers in tears, with scenes including one in which a mother elephant appeared to leave her herd to mourn over her dying calf.

In the same episode, a mother shoebill was shown feeding and watering only her stronger chick, leaving the other to die of malnutrition.

One viewer wrote on Twitter: ‘That poor baby elephant and the poor mother having to watch her baby die! #tears had to stop eating my dinner. BBC #Africa warn me next time.’

Another added: ‘How heartbreaking watching the baby elephant calf die and the mother can only walk away. I’m in tears here.’

Of a scene featuring rhinoceroses, another viewer said: ‘Rhinos meeting down the local watering hole for a quick snog, we’re all the same really, amazing.’

The show’s creators were also accused of using using music to create an emotional narrative.

But producer James Honeyborne insisted that the six-part series reflected the ‘breadth of what happens in nature.’

He told BBC Radio 4′s The World At One: ‘I don’t think we do tell you what to feel, but we do lay open the broad pallet of what is happening in nature – and some of it is joyous and some of it is tough to watch.’

The corporation received 16 complaints about the background music and 16 about the elephant calf’s death.

‘We are obviously concerned that some viewers have been upset,’ said Mr Honeyborne.

‘As soon as you look at an animal not as a species but as an individual, you do get drawn in and your empathy for that individual character will increase.

‘It is part of the process of looking deeper and creating that more immersive experience.’

He denied that the programme’s score ‘told viewers how to feel’ at different points.

‘We’ve always used music in our films,’ he said.

‘The music tends to reflect what is happening in the film, so if we’re telling an intimate story then the music will indeed be intimate too.’

Source

Airports in European nations such as Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands had to suspend most of their flights due to the heavy snow plaguing the continent. Bad weather has also hampered rail service and highway traffic.

On Monday, heavy snow was affecting many nations of Europe, forcing airports, motorways and railway services of countries like Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands to cancel hundreds of flights.

International Airports such as Zaventem, Brussels, said during the course of day, through its website, there would be possible flight delays before they could  melt snow and de-ice planes, as well as sweeping the snow from runways.

For its part, the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC), on Monday reported the cancellation of 40 percent of their flights as a precautionary measure, which had been determined Sunday.

The bus service to Charles de Gaulle, as well as bus and train connections with Orly have been suspended, Aeroports de Paris said.

Also, scores of flights were canceled at Barajas airport in the Spanish capital, and the same situation occurred in the British Heathrow Airport and Frankfurt in Germany.

In Germany, the international airports of Frankfurt and Munich, the largest in the country, announced the suspension of some 300 flights due to ice and snow comditions respectively.

The U.K. Met Office issued an “amber” alert for parts of northern England and Scotland, warning that some areas might have as much as 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) of snow. Some light snow is expected in the same areas Tuesday, with weather forecast to ease across Britain by Wednesday.

Gatwick airport, London’s second-busiest hub, said on its website that passengers should expect some delays and check with airlines before traveling. Some services on the direct train from the airport to the capital have also been canceled.

Transport for London, which oversees the U.K. capital’s public transport system, said it has 89,000 metric tons of salt stockpiled and de-icing trains are in operation. Two of the city’s 11 underground subway lines were delayed, and some overground commuter services are suspended.

According to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, 300 of the 900 scheduled flights had been suspended, while the Dutch airline KLM announced on its website that most of its flights in Europe were canceled.

However, airports in the Russian capital have been one of the few that have not been affected by the bad weather on the continent, although snowfall in Moscow formed a layer of 50 centimeters of snow on the streets .

Meanwhile, the company, Eurostar, which connects high-speed rail in the UK with France and Belgium, canceled some of their connections.

In addition, the consortium warned that Thalys rail traffic could be disrupted between cities like Brussels, Paris and Cologne, Germany.

European rules require airlines to pay for food and accommodation for passengers stranded by cancellations. British Airways (IAG), a unit of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA, said customers scheduled to travel at this time will not be charged if they choose to delay and rebook. People on canceled flights are being offered the choice of a refund, re-booking or re-routing on another airline, the carrier said.

The weather forecast on the old continent is that the cold snap affecting the region, since January 12, will continue until the end of the month.

Source

Arctic summer sea ice reached a minimum 3.41 million sq km this year, around 50 per cent lower than the 1979-200 average.

However a study by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and NASA found sea ice in the Anatarctic has been increasing over the same period.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience, shows for the first time how winds in the Antarctic cause the change in sea ice cover.

Dr Paul Holland of BAS explained that there have been huge increases and decreases in sea ice in certain areas over the last 30 years.

Overall there has been a gain, although it is very slight one of about 0.001 per cent, to a record 19 million sq km.

“Overall sea ice cover in Antarctica is increasing but very slowy. It is about a fifth of the overall decrease in the Arctic.”

Scientists are now investigating the cause of the changes in sea ice in the South Pole.

Dr Holland pointed out sea ice loss has no effect on the sea rise as there is no change in mass, it is just frozen water melting, like ice in a glass of water.

However glacial ice, that is on land and will cause sea level rise, is decreasing in the Antarctic.

“It is important to distinguish between the Antarctic Ice Sheet – glacial ice – which is losing volume, and Antarctic sea ice – frozen seawater – which is expanding, ” said Dr Holland.

Source

Sea ice surrounding Antarctica is expanding due to increased winds, according to a paper published today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

“The total Antarctic sea-ice cover is increasing slowly,” Paul Holland, the lead author of the report, said in a statement. The report didn’t say how by much the ice is expanding.

Arctic ice covering the other pole shrank to the smallest ever in September, one of the most visible effects of climate change. Increasing wind activity near the South Pole over the past 19 years has had the opposite effect on the ice cover, said Ron Kwok, co-author of the report.

“In certain areas, it’s moving the ice edge out toward the ocean,” Kwok said in an interview.

Antarctica, unlike the Arctic, is significantly more vulnerable to strong winds because the northern ice cap “is landlocked, except for certain passages into the ocean,” said Kwok, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “It’s less sensitive to wind.”

Ice cover in the “raw sea” region close to the South Pacific Ocean, has expanded the most, he said, while in other areas, “where the wind is pushing toward the coast, it’s shrinking.”

The Arctic ice cap shrank to 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles) on Sept. 16, the lowest in a satellite record that dates back 33 years, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. Satellite data for the Antarctic ice cover dates back 19 years.

The NSIDC deems an area of ocean to have ice cover if a section that measures 25 square kilometers is 15 percent covered. That means strong winds may spread dense ice over a wider area without changing the total volume.

“We don’t know the thickness,” Kwok said. “We don’t know the volume of the ice very well. It’s something that we’re still trying to understand.”

Source

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. 

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued  quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.

This stands in sharp contrast  to the release of the previous  figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.

Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.

Some climate scientists, such as Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.

Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.

Even Prof Jones admitted that he and his colleagues did not understand the impact of ‘natural variability’ – factors such as long-term ocean temperature cycles and changes in the output of the sun. However, he said he was still convinced that the current decade would end up significantly warmer than the previous two.

The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit.

Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.

Some scientists have claimed that this rate of warming is set to increase hugely without drastic cuts to carbon-dioxide emissions, predicting a catastrophic increase of up to a further five degrees  Celsius by the end of the century.

The new figures were released as the Government made clear that it would ‘bend’ its own  carbon-dioxide rules and build new power stations to try to combat the threat of blackouts. 

At last week’s Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister, John Hayes, promised that ‘the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need fuel for heat, light and transport – energy policies, you might say, for the many, not the few’ – a pledge that has triggered fury from green activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to wind-turbine firms.

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U.S. corn and soybean crops have been slashed even more than expected by the worst drought in half a century and will fail to replenish ultra-low stockpiles, a U.S. government report showed on Friday, raising fears of a new world food crisis.

Corn prices briefly surged to a record on the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast but then retreated because the government said demand for the grain would fall due to its soaring cost.

In the most authoritative view yet on the state of the withered U.S. crops, the report — based on samples from parched, scorched fields — showed the corn harvest would drop 13 percent from last year, with yields 25 percent below normal.

Inventories of soybeans, a key component of livestock feed from India to Indiana, would be the smallest in nine years.

The grim report is an abrupt reversal from just two months ago when farmers, making the largest corn plantings in 75 years, expected a record haul. Consumers worldwide were also hopeful that a robust harvest from the biggest agricultural exporter would help end a period of depleted global stockpiles.

Now, however, many fear record-high prices and meager stockpiles will rule commodity markets for at least a year more — and it may worsen if growing signs of shortages prompt some countries to impose export bans or make panic purchases, as they did during the last dramatic price spike in 2008.

“Several urgent actions must be taken to address the current situation to prevent a potential global food price crisis,” said Shenggen Fan, head of an agricultural think tank funded by the World Bank. In addition to avoiding trade restraints, he said countries should throttle back on using grain to make biofuels.

The report could sharpen the emerging debate around the U.S. policy that requires use of 13.2 billion gallons (50 billion liters) of biofuels — mostly corn ethanol — this year, equal to 9 percent of fuel for cars and light trucks. While dozens of politicians and livestock lobby groups have called for relief, the policy has staunch Farm Belt support that is unlikely to waver in an election year.

Corn futures prices, already up more than 60 percent since before the drought began in mid-June, surged to a record $8.43-3/4 a bushel.

27,000 FARMERS

The impact of the drought has been increasingly apparent over the past eight weeks, but the USDA’s report will be the most exhaustive in measuring the damage.

The USDA surveys about 27,000 growers and test-samples yield in major states to estimate crop output based on Aug. 1 conditions. It says there is a 10.7 percent margin of error for its estimate of the corn crop and 11.4 percent on soybeans.

The corn crop will be 13 percent smaller than last year, instead of the record crop needed to replenish stocks. Yields, at 123.4 bushels an acre, would be the lowest since 1995 and 25 percent below normal. Traders had expected a yield of 127.3 bushels an acre.

Although record-high prices and small crops will constrict corn and soy use, U.S. stockpiles will be razor-thin — a three-week supply of corn and a two-week supply of soybeans when the 2013 harvest begins, the USDA projected.

The USDA lowered its forecast of Russia’s wheat crop by 12 percent and Kazakhstan’s by 15 percent because of hot, dry weather. China’s corn crop is up 2.5 percent, said the USDA. High prices will bring a record soybean crop in Brazil, up 4 percent from the previous estimate, so it tops the United States as the world’s largest grower.

Global wheat consumption will rise as the grain is used as a substitute for corn in livestock feed. Corn consumption would fall by 4 percent worldwide, with the smaller U.S. crop accounting for three-quarters of the decline.

Less corn will be used in making ethanol due to drought, the USDA said. It lowered its estimate by 8 percent for 2012/13, to 4.5 billion bushels.

In its August reports, the USDA slashed its corn and soybean estimates for the second month in a row, reflecting the impact of the drought, which stunted crops when they needed rain to mature. July was the hottest month on record in the continental United States.

The USDA made the estimates with the harvest season only weeks away for corn and soybeans; the wheat harvest is winding down. Half of the corn crop is in poor or very poor condition — a year ago, 60 percent was top-rated.

More than 60 percent of the continental United States, including prime farm and ranch territory, was under moderate to exceptional drought this week, a slight improvement. July was the hottest month on record, beating the worst month of the Dust Bowl era in 1936.

Small U.S. crops can carry a global wallop since the United States is the world’s largest farm exporter. It grows 40 percent of the corn and soybeans as well as a fifth of the wheat sold on the world market. Bad weather in Russia and India also is pinching crop output this year. High food prices were a factor in the Arab spring uprisings of 2011.

World food prices rose by 6 percent in July, driven by surging corn and sugar prices, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said. The index is below its February 2011 peak but higher than in 2007-08, when fear of shortages drove up prices and prompted export bans in some countries.

In 11 of the past 20 years, USDA’s August forecasts were smaller than the final figure.

Source

The US Drought Monitor reported a nearly threefold increase in areas of extreme drought over the past week in the nine Midwestern states where three quarters of the country’s corn and soybean crops are produced.

 “That expansion of D3 or extreme conditions intensified quite rapidly and we went from 11.9 percent to 28.9 percent in just one week,” Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and Drought Monitor author, told AFP.

“For myself, studying drought, that’s rapid. We’ve seen a lot of things developing with this drought that were unprecedented, especially the speed.”

Almost two thirds of the continental United States are now suffering drought conditions, the largest area recorded since the Drought Monitor project started in 1999.

“If you are following the grain prices here in the US, they are reflecting the anticipated shortages with a price increase,” Fuchs said

“In turn, you’re going to see those price increases trickle into the other areas that use those grain crops: cattle feed, ethanol production and then food stuffs.”

In some rural areas, municipal water suppliers are talking about mandatory restrictions because they have seen such a dramatic drop in the water table that they fear being unable to fulfill deliveries to customers, Fuchs said.

“Things have really developed over the last two months and conditions have worsened just that quick and that is really unprecedented,” he added.

“Definitely exports are going to suffer because there is going to be less available and the markets are already reflecting that.

“It’s anticipated that this drought is going to persist through the next couple of months at least and conditions are not overly favorable to see any widespread improvement.”

President Barack Obama’s administration has opened up protected US land to help farmers and ranchers hit by the drought and encouraged crop insurance companies to forgo charging interest for a month.

Officials have said the drought will drive up food prices since 78 percent of US corn and 11 percent of soybean crops have been hit and the United States is the world’s biggest producer of those crops.

The current drought has been compared to a 1988 crisis that cut production by 20 percent and cost the economy tens of billions of dollars.

The US Department of Agriculture issued retail price forecasts Wednesday for 2013 and they already showed an impact from the drought, with consumers expected to pay between three and four percent more for their groceries.

“The 2013 numbers reflect higher-than-average inflation which is partly a function of the drought and the higher crop prices,” said Ephraim Leibtag of the USDA’s Economic Research Service.

“The drought effects are starting now at the farm and agricultural level.

“Those things take two to 12 months to work through the system. So you’ll see some effects as early as the fall (autumn) in terms of the grocery stores and restaurants, certainly later in the year and into 2013.”

The full impact of the drought on food prices won’t be known for months.

“It’s too early to tell as we don’t know how much of the crop is going to be lost and how much higher corn and soybean prices will go,” Leibtag said.

“We are not forecasting major impacts on retail food at this point. If the drought gets worse or corn and soybean prices rise even more, that would start to have a bigger impact.”

Even before the last week, farmers were telling AFP they may have to cut their losses – chopping down fields of half-mature, earless corn to feed the stalks to cattle.

Weather forecasters predicted no respite.

Source

The heaviest rain in six decades in the Chinese capital has left 10 people dead, Beijing authorities said Sunday.

As of 4 a.m. Sunday, more than 30,000 residents in districts of Fangshan, Huairou, Mentougou and Pinggu as well as Miyun and Yanqing counties were relocated, the city’s floods control headquarters said at 9 a.m.

In Fangshan, where the maximum precipitation reached 460 mm in Hebei Township as of 6 a.m., road traffic in 12 townships was disrupted. Mobile telecommunication services and Internet access were cut off in six townships, the headquarters said.

Train services between Beijing and Guangzhou were suspended as the railway line section at Nangangwa, Fengtai District, was soaked in water, the headquarters said.

More than 12,000 people worked for draining 1 million cubic meters of water from streets. Most puddles in the city were cleared by 6 a.m.

As of 6 a.m., citywide people suffered an average precipitation of 170 mm.

Source

Drought Monitor July 17 2012. Click to enlarge

Are you ready for the next major global food crisis?  The price of corn hit an all-time record high on Thursday.  So did the price of soybeans.  The price of corn is up about 50 percent since the middle of last month, and the price of wheat has risen by about 50 percent over the past five weeks.  On Thursday, corn for September delivery reached $8.166 per bushel, and many analysts believe that it could hit $10 a bushel before this crisis is over.  The worst drought in the United States in more than 50 years is projected to continue

well into August, and more than 1,300 counties in the United States have been declared to be official natural disaster areas.  So how is this crisis going to affect the average person on the street?  Well, most Americans and most Europeans are going to notice their grocery bills go up significantly over the coming months.  That will not be pleasant.  But in other areas of the world this crisis could mean the difference between life and death for some people.  You see, half of all global corn exports come from the United States.  So what happens if the U.S. does not have any corn to export?  About a billion people around the world live on the edge of starvation, and today the Financial Times ran a front page story with the following headline: “World braced for new food crisis“.  Millions upon millions of families in poor countries are barely able to feed themselves right now.  So what happens if the price of the food that they buy goes up dramatically?

You may not think that you eat much corn, but the truth is that it is in most of the things that we buy at the grocery store.  In fact, corn is found in about 74 percent of the products we buy in the supermarket and it is used in more than 3,500 ways.

Americans consume approximately one-third of all the corn grown in the world each year, and we export massive amounts of corn to the rest of the world.  Unfortunately, thanks to the drought of 2012 farmers are watching their corn die right in front of their eyes all over the United States.

The following is from a Washington Post article that was posted on Thursday….

Nearly 40 percent of the corn crop was in poor-to-very-poor condition as of Sunday, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. That compared with just 11 percent a year ago.

“The crop, if you look going south from Illinois and Indiana, is damaged and a lot of it is damaged hopelessly and beyond repair now,” said Sterling Smith, a Citibank Institutional Client Group vice president who specializes in commodities.

About 30 percent of the soybean crop was in poor-to-very-poor condition, which compared with 10 percent a year ago.

Conditions for both crops are expected to worsen in Monday’s agriculture agency report.

More than half of the country is experiencing drought conditions right now, and this is devastating both ranchers and farmers.  Right now, ranchers all over the western United States are slaughtering their herds early as feed prices rise.  It is being projected that the price of meat will rise substantially later this year.

The following is from a recent MSNBC article….

For example, you may want to make room in your freezer for meat because prices for beef and pork are expected to drop in the next few months as farmers slaughter herds to deal with the high cost of grains that are used as livestock feed, said Shawn Hackett of the agricultural commodities firm Hackett Financial Advisors in Boynton Beach, Fla. But, he added, everything from milk to salad dressing is going to cost more in the near term, and eventually the meat deals will evaporate as demand outstrips supply.

So there may be some deals on meat in the short-term as all of these animals are slaughtered, but in the long-term we can expect prices to go up quite a bit.

But it isn’t as if food is not already expensive enough.  The price of food rose much faster than the overall rate of inflation last year.

As I wrote about yesterday, American families found their grocery budgets stretched very thin during 2011.  Just check out these food inflation rates from last year….

• Beef: +10.2%
• Pork: +8.5%
• Fish: +7.1%
• Eggs: +9.2%
• Dairy: +6.8%
• Oils and Fats: +9.3%

If prices rose that fast last year, what will those statistics look like at the end of this year if this drought continues?

Sadly, America is not alone.  According to Bloomberg, the U.S. is not the only place that is having problems with crops right now….

Dry weather in the U.S., as well as the Black Sea region; a poor start to the Indian monsoon and the possibility of emerging El Nino conditions suggest agricultural products may rally, Barclays said in a report e-mailed yesterday.

And all of this is very bad news for a world that is really struggling to feed itself.

In many countries around the globe, the poor spend up to 75 percent of their incomes on food.  Just a 10 percent increase in the price of basic food staples can be absolutely devastating for impoverished families that are living right on the edge.

You may not have ever known what it is like to wonder where your next meal is going to come from, but in many areas around the world that is a daily reality for many families.

Just check out what is happening in Yemen….

Crying and staring at his distended belly, 6-year-old Warood cannot walk on his spindly legs.

“We become so familiar with sickness,” said his mother, who according to social norms here does not give her name to outsiders.

She says she has watched two of her children die. “I have to decide: Do I buy rice or medicine?”

The United Nations estimates that 267,000 Yemeni children are facing life-threatening levels of malnutrition. In the Middle East’s poorest country hunger has doubled since 2009. More than 10 million people — 44% of the population — do not have enough food to eat, according to the United Nation’s World Food Program.

In the United States, we aren’t going to see starvation even if nearly the entire corn crop fails.  Our grocery bills might be more painful, but there is still going to be plenty of food for everyone.

In other areas of the world, a bad year for global crops can mean the difference between life and death.

Sadly, it is being projected that the current drought in the United States will last well into August at least.

But even when this current drought ends, our problems will not be over.  The truth is that we are facing a very severe long-term water crisis in the western United States.

Just check out the following facts from foodandwaterwatch.org….

-California has a 20-year supply of freshwater left

-New Mexico has only a ten-year supply of freshwater left

-The U.S. interior west is probably the driest it has been in 500 years, according to the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Geological Survey

-Lake Mead, the vast reservoir of the Colorado River, has a 50 percent chance of running dry by 2021

The 1,450 mile long Colorado River is probably the most important body of water in the southwestern United States.

Unfortunately, the Colorado River is rapidly dying.

The following is from a recent article by Jonathan Waterman about how the once mighty Colorado River is running dry…

Fifty miles from the sea, 1.5 miles south of the Mexican border, I saw a river evaporate into a scum of phosphates and discarded water bottles. This dirty water sent me home with feet so badly infected that I couldn’t walk for a week. And a delta once renowned for its wildlife and wetlands is now all but part of the surrounding and parched Sonoran Desert. According to Mexican scientists whom I met with, the river has not flowed to the sea since 1998. If the Endangered Species Act had any teeth in Mexico, we might have a chance to save the giant sea bass (totoaba), clams, the Sea of Cortez shrimp fishery that depends upon freshwater returns, and dozens of bird species.

So let this stand as an open invitation to the former Secretary of the Interior and all water buffalos who insist upon telling us that there is no scarcity of water here or in the Mexican Delta. Leave the sprinklered green lawns outside the Aspen conferences, come with me, and I’ll show you a Colorado River running dry from its headwaters to the sea. It is polluted and compromised by industry and agriculture. It is overallocated, drought stricken, and soon to suffer greatly from population growth. If other leaders in our administration continue the whitewash, the scarcity of knowledge and lack of conservation measures will cripple a western civilization built upon water. “You can either do it in crisis mode,” Pat Mulroy said at this conference, “or you can start educating now.”

People need to wake up because we have some very serious water issues in this country.

In the heartland of America, farmers pump water from a massive underground lake known as the Ogallala Aquifer to irrigate their fields.

The problem is that the Ogallala Aquifer is rapidly being pumped dry.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, “a volume equivalent to two-thirds of the water in Lake Erie” has been permanently drained from the Ogallala Aquifer since 1940.

Once upon a time, the Ogallala Aquifer had an average depth of about 240 feet.

Today, the average depth of the Ogallala Aquifer is just 80 feet, and in some parts of Texas the water is totally gone.

Right now, the Ogallala Aquifer is being drained at a rate of approximately 800 gallons per minute.

Once that water is gone it will not be replaced.

So what will the “breadbasket of America” do then?

Most Americans do not realize this, but we are facing some major, major water problems.

Let us pray that this current drought ends and let us pray that everyone around the world will have enough to eat.

But even if we get through this year okay by some miracle, that doesn’t mean that our problems are over.

Source

Torrential rain in southern Japan has triggered flash floods and landslides that have left at least 19 dead and 20 more people missing.

Television footage Thursday showed residents wading through muddy, hip-deep water on streets as others shovelled out mud from their homes.

The damage was reportedly concentrated on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu.

‘We are receiving many requests for rescuers and reports of mudslides. We are responding to the calls as swiftly as we possibly can,’ a local disaster official told AFP.

Most of those killed in the disaster were elderly people who did not manage to leave their houses themselves.

“Unfortunately, we believe the numbers [of dead and missing] will rise as we get more and more information from the field,” a local official in Kumamoto told AFP.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency said Kumamoto and neighboring Oita prefectures saw “the heaviest rain that [the region] has ever experienced” as hourly rainfalls of 100 millimeters were recorded.

The Meteorological Agency predicted a further 20 centimeters (8 inches) of rainfall through Friday.

The town of Aso in Kumamoto was hit by a record 500 millimeters of rain while in neighboring Minami-Aso severe landslides washed away houses.

In all, more than 50,000 people have received evacuation orders, according to local media.

Huge glaciers in the area between Pakistan and China are puzzling scientists – and disproving the doom-laden predictions of some climate experts.

The glaciers in the Karakoram Range between northern Pakistan and western China have actually grown, rather than shrinking.

Unlike most mountain glaciers, the Karakoram glaciers, which account for 3 percent of the total ice-covered area in the world, excluding Greenland and Antarctica, are not shrinking.

A team of French glaciologists has recently confirmed that these glaciers on average have remained stable or may have even grown slightly in recent years.

The new study used data from satellites to study the Karakoram Range of northern Pakistan and western China.

The researchers found that the ice had actually increased in thickness by 0.11 (plus or minus 0.22) meters per year between 1999 and 2008.

Experts cautioned that the gain is so small that the glaciers might not actually be growing – but what is clear is that the glaciers are not shrinking, according to a report published in Nature Geoscience.

Etienne Berthier, a glaciologist at the Université de Toulouse in France says, ‘Not all glacial regions are changing in the same way.’

A Nasa study earlier this year using the gravity-sensing GRACE satellites hinted that ice loss in the high Asian mountains might be far less drastic than earlier predictions.

Previous estimates of ice loss in the high Asia mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons a year, according to the University of Colorado Boulder University’s Professor John Wahr.

Previously, it had been claimed by the UN that Himalayan glaciers would have melted to a fifth of current levels by 2035, leading to sea level rises and drought.

Those predictions used ground-based measurements, whereas the new study measured the effect of gravity on twin Nasa satellites to give an accurate measure of the mass of ice being lost.

‘The results in this region really were a surprise,’ said Wahr.

‘One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and were extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers.’

‘But unlike the lower glaciers, many of the high glaciers would still be too cold to lose mass, even in the presence of atmospheric warming.’

Around the world, melting has been overestimated. Earth’s glaciers and ice caps are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually – up to 30 per cent lower than predicted.  

The researchers used satellite measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE,, to calculate that the world’s glaciers and ice caps had lost about 148 billion tons, or about 39 cubic miles of ice annually from 2003 to 2010.

Traditional estimates of Earth’s ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground-based measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all of the unmonitored glaciers around the world were doing, he said.

Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for a decade or more.

‘The strength of GRACE is that it sees everything in the system,’ said Wahr. ‘Even though we don’t have the resolution to look at individual glaciers, GRACE has proven to be an exceptional tool.’

The total does not count the mass from individual glacier and ice caps on the fringes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets — roughly an additional 80 billion tons.

Launched in 2002, two GRACE satellites whip around Earth in tandem 16 times a day at an altitude of about 300 miles, sensing subtle variations in Earth’s mass and gravitational pull.

Separated by roughly 135 miles, the satellites measure changes in Earth’s gravity field caused by regional changes in the planet’s mass, including ice sheets, oceans and water stored in the soil and in underground aquifers.

A positive change in gravity during a satellite approach over Greenland, for example, tugs the lead GRACE satellite away from the trailing satellite, speeding it up and increasing the distance between the two.

A sensitive ranging system allows researchers to measure the distance of the two satellites down to as small as 1 micron- about 1/100 the width of a human hair – and to calculate ice and water amounts from particular regions of interest around the globe using their gravity fields. 

‘The total amount of ice lost to Earth’s oceans from 2003 to 2010 would cover the entire United States in about 1 and one-half feet of water,’ said Wahr, also a fellow at the CU-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

According to the GRACE data, total sea level rise from all land-based ice on Earth including Greenland and Antarctica was roughly 1.5 millimeters per year annually or about 12 millimeters, or one-half inch, from 2003 to 2010, said Wahr.

Source

The start of the Great British summer might typically see people seek shelter from the sunshine.

But in one of the wettest, coldest and dullest June’s since records began, taking refuge under a sink from yet another downpour was all part of the start of summer for youngsters attending a Gloucestershire show.

And elsewhere, the story wasn’t much different as storms and hailstones as big as golf balls were all scenes which unfolded due to June’s unseasonable weather

Average rainfall over England and Wales, including an estimated figure for today, was 157mm – more than twice the average for the period between 1981-2010.

The wettest June recorded previously was in 2007 when there were heavy floods in the north of the country.

Previously, the second wettest June was in 1912 and the Met Office said that we have already far surpassed the amount of rain that fell in that month.

The equivalent figures for Scotland were 104mm and 171% of the normal amount of rainfall, and for 145mm, which is twice the typical amount expected in Northern Ireland.

It has already been confirmed that this month has been the wettest June in Wales.

June 2012 was also the dullest since 1909 and the coldest since 1991.

Average sunshine over England and Wales, including an estimated figure for June 30, was 123 hours, which is a mere 64% of the 1981-2010 average..

In Scotland, there were 123 hours of sunshine and in Northern Ireland, an unseasonable 136 hours.

And it doesn’t look like the start of July will be much better as Chris Burton, of forecasters Meteogroup, said: ‘Next week looks unsettled again with lots of wet weather around.’

The torrential rain and fierce storms have been put down to a weather phenomenon known as the Spanish plume, forecasters said.

The pattern occurs when warm, moist air sweeping up from the south is lifted by a cold weather front from the west bringing prolonged and exceptionally intense downpours.

Paul Knightley, senior forecaster at MeteoGroup, said: ‘It is a pattern that when it sets up in the correct fashion will produce spectacular thunder storms.’

The Spanish plume was behind three rare ‘super cell’ thunderstorms that swept across the Midlands this week bringing hailstones the size of golf balls in some areas.

The Godiva Festival due to take place in Coventry’s War Memorial Park over the weekend that was expected to attract more than 100,000 revelers has been cancelled due to the heavy rain.

Elsewhere, swathes of the Midlands were hit by intense downpours, with some parts receiving almost an inch of rain in just an hour – a third of the average rainfall for the whole month of June.

The dreadful weather this month also caused transport headaches for thousands.

A landslide caused by a torrential downpour led to a freight train derailing, blocking the West Highland railway line.

The 24-wagon train came off the tracks between Corrour and Tulloch on the 28th June as a result of a huge influx of rain.

The final figures for this month’s rainfall will not be released until June 2nd by the Met Office, but it is anticipated that rainfall will be amongst the highest ever for the month.

186.3mm of rain fell in the country beating the previous highest amount of rainfall for June – 183.1mm – which had been set in 1998.

As well as having to put up with a higher than average amount of rain, people looking forward to enjoying the sun have also been disappointed this month.

Temperatures have been below average, with a mean temperature of 11.9c – 0.7c below average for June, and the Central England Temperature of 13.6C (56F) was 0.9 degree Celsius below the average for 1981-2010 – the lowest in June since 1991.

As well as the Spanish Plume, one of the main factors behind the dull weather so far this month has been the position of the jet stream, which has been much further south than usual.

This has led to low pressure systems ending up close to the UK for almost the whole month.

Despite the mostly dreadful weather this month, however, June appeared to end with a slight and brief spell of more typical conditions for the month.

Yesterday saw a patch of hot and humid air pushed up into the country from Spain, which led to warm and muggy conditions.

The temperature in St James’s Park in central London even reached 28.4c.

Typically, the sunshine did not last in many parts of the country, though, and there were thunderstorms across the UK.

Northern Ireland and Scotland were worst affected by the sudden downpours and a staggering 1,000 lightning strokes hit the UK during a five minute period yesterday.

Source

What’s reported above isn’t confined to the northern hemisphere. It’s happening in the southern hemisphere too where Brisbane recorded its coldest wettest June in more than a decade.

 Cold, wet conditions break record for south east

Amma Sykes – ABC Brisbane June 27, 2012

It’s not all that often that you see scarves, boots, overcoats and umbrellas feature heavily in Brisbane’s collective wardrobe, but a wave cold weather this week has seen the sunny state capital look more like its southern cousin, Melbourne.

The miserable weather is being caused by a trough that has been forming over south east Queensland and off the coast.

Weatherzone’s Brett Dutschke says the trough has brought widespread rain to central, central western and south east Queensland.

“Some parts have had a month’s worth of rain in a day, Brisbane has had 27 millimetres in the last 24 hours,” he says making this Brisbane’s “wettest June in thirteen years.”

And if you’re wondering why it feels so cold, Mr Dutschke puts it down to the wind-chill factor.

“The wind will make the temperature feel colder than it actually is. Brisbane is struggling to get into mid-teens, it will feel more like the low teens.”

Temperatures in Brisbane have struggled to get past 15 degrees for five consecutive days.

Mr Dutschke says the low temperatures are not that unusual on their own, however the run of cold days makes it a record breaking cold snap.

“Thursday will be the 6th day in a row without reaching 20 degrees, and the last time that occurred was in 1999, so for some people it’s probably a distant memory.”

“The most unusual thing about this week is how long lasting and prolonged it is,” that, he says is due to the widespread nature of the cloud.

“It’s a slowly developing low pressure trough and it’s got a fair bit of moisture in it, so it’s bringing rain which is adding to the cooling.”

But before the rain and cool weather disappears Brisbane can expect more falls.

“We do have more rain to come, today and tomorrow, and there’s a chance of getting some minor flash flooding, particularly near the coast as the system becomes more coastal oriented.

Brisbane, he says, could get another 50 millimetres before it moves offshore before the weekend, which would also make it the wettest start to the year, since 1999.

A low forming off Fraser Island will increase surf in coastal areas on Thursday and Friday.

“It will certainly make the surf increase; we have a chance of seeing 5 or 6 feet waves hitting the beaches.”

Mr Dutschke says you’ll be able to do your washing by the weekend, with sunshine expected by Friday.

“There will be much drier south-westerly winds filtering through south east Queensland over the weekend and then we’ll see temperatures getting comfortably above 20 next week.”

Just in time for Queensland to win the State of Origin decider in Brisbane? Mr Dutschke says football fans can expect a warmer, dry night.

“I can confidently say next Wednesday is looking dry. It’ll be reasonably comfortable, temperatures in the mid-to-high teens during the evening, so I think it will be good for footy.”

Source

If NASA’s hunch is correct, Antarctica might have been a lot warmer 20 million years ago – if a bit wetter.

A new university-led study found that ancient Antarctica was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected.

How the research was formed: A rendering of drilling operations during the campaign in Southern McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, from October - December 2007. Click to enlarge

The team, including researchers from Louisiana State University and the University of Southern California, say the climate was suitable to support substantial vegetation – including stunted trees – along the edges of the frozen continent.

By examining plant leaf wax remnants in sediment core samples taken from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, the research team found summer temperatures along the Antarctic coast 15 to 20 million years ago were up to 11C warmer than today, with temperatures reaching as high as 7C.

Precipitation levels also were found to be several times higher than today.

Sarah Feakins, an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College, said: ‘The ultimate goal of the study was to better understand what the future of climate change may look like.

‘Just as history has a lot to teach us about the future, so does past climate. This record shows us how much warmer and wetter it can get around the Antarctic ice sheet as the climate system heats up.

‘This is some of the first evidence of just how much warmer it was.’

Scientists began to suspect that high-latitude temperatures during the middle Miocene epoch were warmer than previously believed when co-author Sophie Warny, assistant professor at LSU, discovered large quantities of pollen and algae in sediment cores taken around Antarctica.

Fossils of plant life in Antarctica are difficult to come by because the movement of the massive ice sheets covering the landmass grinds and scrapes away the evidence.

‘Marine sediment cores are ideal to look for clues of past vegetation, as the fossils deposited are protected from ice sheet advances, but these are technically very difficult to acquire in the Antarctic and require international collaboration,’ said Warny.

Tipped off by the tiny pollen samples, Feakins opted to look at the remnants of leaf wax taken from sediment cores for clues. Leaf wax acts as a record of climate change by documenting the hydrogen isotope ratios of the water the plant took up while it was alive.

‘Ice cores can only go back about one million years,’ Feakins said. ‘Sediment cores allow us to go into “deep time.”‘

Based upon a model originally developed to analyse hydrogen isotope ratios in atmospheric water vapor data from NASA’s Aura spacecraft, co-author and JPL scientist Jung-Eun Lee created experiments to find out just how much warmer and wetter climate may have been.

‘When the planet heats up, the biggest changes are seen toward the poles,’ Lee said. ‘The southward movement of rain bands associated with a warmer climate in the high-latitude southern hemisphere made the margins of Antarctica less like a polar desert, and more like present-day Iceland.’

The peak of this Antarctic greening occurred during the middle Miocene period, between 16.4 and 15.7 million years ago.

This was well after the age of the dinosaurs, which became extinct 64 million years ago. During the Miocene epoch, mostly modern-looking animals roamed Earth, such as three-toed horses, deer, camel and various species of apes.

While none of these ‘proxies’ is as reliable as the bubbles of gas trapped in ice cores, they are the best evidence available this far back in time.

Source