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2017: the year in extreme weather
Failed satellite programmed with 'wrong co-ordinates'
Hurricanes and heatwaves: stark signs of climate change 'new normal'
This year is set to be the third warmest on record in the US, as scientists say the fingerprints of climate change can be seen in numerous extreme weather events
Scientists say 2017 is set to be the third warmest year on record in the US as they look back on a year littered with stark signals of climate change.
The year-to-date average temperature across the contiguous US has been 2.6F above the 20th century average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), placing it only behind 2012 and 2016 in terms of record warmth.
Continue reading...Through the seasons: readers' best weather photographs in 2017
As the year draws to a close, we celebrate the finest weather photos our readers’ have snapped this year – from January dawns to December snowfalls
Continue reading...Ice will return but extinctions can't be reversed. We must act now
We have to develop digital forecasts of species’ responses to climate change, design robust strategies to protect as many as possible, and help nature to adapt
Each day increasingly dangerous hurricanes, wildfires, and floods betray the influence of climate change. We are appalled at the accruing losses of life and property. The arguments to address climate change at the recent UN climate conference in Bonn focused most often on these more concrete risks. However, the worst effects of climate change will come not from severe weather but from the irreversible loss of species and ecosystems.
Moulded over millions of years by natural selection, the diversity of species on Earth does more than just inspire awe. They are technical marvels and solutions to problems we do not yet know exist.
Country diary: a stone dog marked by time and tides
Wrest Park, Bedfordshire The statue was pitted and scarred with marine fossils, drooling threads of spider web anchored to its teeth
Even before the stonemason struck soft rock with hard metal for the first time, he must have known that he was destined for imperfection. Three hundred years later, the evidence was plain to see on an animal sitting on the terrace of the big house, haughty, imperious and mildly deformed.
The mason had chiselled a block of sediment from an ancient sea into a guard dog of the land. The sculpture was well executed – the claws on the beast’s forepaws overlapped the plinth, making a pleasing break to the block’s rectangularity. A loop of its tail coiled daringly beyond the straight edge.
Continue reading...Renewables generated triple the power of coal in 2017, UK figures show
As the worst-polluting coal plants near the end of their life, the focus must turn to tackling gas dependency, says analysis firm
British wind farms generated more electricity than coal plants on more than 75% of days this year, an analysis of energy figures has shown.
Solar also outperformed coal more than half the time, the data provided by website MyGridGB revealed.
Continue reading...UK enjoyed 'greenest year for electricity ever' in 2017
Blue tarantula
'Haywire' seasons lead to freak year for nature, says National Trust
Warmer weather has been good for some of the UK’s flora and fauna, while others have suffered or almost disappeared completely
“Haywire” seasons caused by global warming are having a worrying effect on flora and fauna, a leading conservation charity has warned.
In its annual wildlife and weather review, the National Trust said mixed-up seasons and warming seas in 2017 had led to a “freak” year for nature.
Continue reading...You might be Christmassed out, but these Australian birds are festive all year
Clarets fans can avoid blue passport misery | Brief letters
The global plastic binge (Report, 26 December) needs more than “serious source reduction efforts”. I have just completed a dry-season 10-day voyage along the Irrawaddy river in Myanmar, and did a similar trip down the Mekong river in Vietnam last year. The river banks are sadly festooned with plastic waste tipped there in the absence of municipal refuse collection. Come the rainy season the whole lot will be swept into the sea.
Giles Youngs
Drinkstone, Suffolk
• My front garden has become a repository for rubber bands. Does the Post Office do an annual audit of them?
Cleo Sylvestre
London
Prince Charles: 'Technology won't solve climate change'
How the plight to save a bird species shows how to bridge the red/blue divide
A plan to save the sage grouse was a rare instance where ranchers, the timber industry, scientists, landowners and environmentalists all agreed on something
At 5am, the day is black, and resounds with the steady drum of rain. My husband Rich is getting ready for work. He oils his leather gloves and fills a Thermos. He’ll spend a 10-hour day in the downpour: tramping through thorny salmonberry and wading through the roaring creeks.
We live in the Oregon Coast Range, a region that’s been in steady economic decline since the sawmills began shutting down in the late 1980s. Before Rich got this job we were living hand to mouth. Now things are looking up. It won’t make us wealthy, but Rich has scored one of the best jobs in our remote neck of the woods.
Continue reading...Back from the brink
'Coral bleaching is getting worse ... but the biggest problem is pollution'
Conservationists are battling to save the 700-mile Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in the Caribbean suffering the effects of mass tourism and global warming
The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef is the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere – an underwater wilderness stretching over 700 miles along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.
One of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the Americas, the reef is home to a dazzling variety of coral and more than 500 species of fish, and provides a livelihood for more than a million people. But now, a combination of mass tourism and poor waste management has left the reef increasingly vulnerable to climate change, placing this natural wonder in serious trouble.
Continue reading...'I have a lot of enemies': the Honduran marine park rangers facing death threats
The tropical island of Roatán is a gold mine for tourism and fishermen but those protecting the reef want tougher laws to turn the area into a no-take zone
“I’m like one of those old-school gangsters,” says Ralston Brooks, a park ranger on the island of Roatán off the coast of Honduras. “If you’re going to do it, do it. Pop a cap.”
The 37-year-old boat captain says he faces regular death threats from local fishermen because of his work patrolling the island for illegal fishing. “I have a lot of enemies. But you’ve got to suck it up: if we don’t do this, the reef will be gone.”
How did half of the great Florida coral reef system disappear?
Overfishing, development and pollution have all contributed to the reef’s decline, but climate change is its biggest threat. UN targets must be met to stop ocean acidification
The great Florida coral reef system stretches hundreds of miles down the eastern seaboard of the US. It is the world’s third largest, and nearly 1,400 species of plants and animals and 500 species of fish have been recorded there.
But last year marine scientists found nearly half the reef was missing. They took the latest satellite images, compared them with precisely drawn 250-year-old British admiralty charts and found them nearly identical.
The Amazon town, a coral reef, big oil, and a catastrophe waiting to happen
Oiapoque, surrounded by mangroves and close to a recently discovered 600-mile reef, is divided over what BP and Total might bring and what they might destroy
Anchored in shallow, cloudy waters just a few hundred yards from the mangrove swamps that dominate this wild and empty coastline, the fishermen rolled in their nets. The three men had spent five days at sea and their catch glittered on the deck.
“It’s good fishing,” said Cleyton Celeiro, 26, who feeds his wife and two children with money earned on trips to the Amapá state coast, on the far north-eastern corner of the Amazon. “It’s beautiful, I like it. I’m proud to be a fisherman.”
Continue reading...'We don’t have time to wait and see': air pollution protesters resort to direct action
Campaigners vow to continue to block traffic at sites across London until their demands are heard and political action to reduce pollution levels is taken
As the green man appeared on the pedestrian crossing a couple of dozen people dressed in Santa hats and tinsel shuffled into the road at one of London’s busiest roundabouts.
Moments later, in the early morning gloom, a banner was unfurled and the small group of pensioners, students and workers – armed with home-made road signs and leaflets – had blocked both lanes of the dual carriageway.
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