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Solved: the mystery of our absent red squirrels
Strathnairn, Highlands In all the years we had lived here, we had never had a red squirrel in the garden. This has been the subject of much banter in the village shop
One of the main wildlife mysteries in the strath is the distribution of red squirrels in gardens in the adjoining villages of Farr and Inverarnie. Over many years we have advised people over putting out peanuts and feeders, and every one has succeeded in attracting them. However, one garden of an acre with mature trees and seemingly ideal has not succeeded, and it is ours!
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Sea sponge the size of a minivan discovered in ocean depths off Hawaii
Researchers believe the creature found by scientists 2,100m below the surface of the ocean is the largest of its kind ever documented
Scientists on a deep-sea expedition in the waters off Hawaii have discovered what they say is the world’s largest known sponge.
The creature, roughly the size of a minivan, was discovered about 2,100m (7,000ft) down in a marine conservation area off the shores of the north-western Hawaiian -islands. The rare sponge, with a bluish-white colour and brain-like appearance, stunned scientists when it appeared in the remote cameras attached to their underwater rover.
Continue reading...How to trap a platypus
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What is going on with India's weather?
On May 19, India’s all-time temperature record was smashed in the northern city of Phalodi in the state of Rajasthan. Temperatures soared to 51℃, beating the previous record set in 1956 by 0.4℃.
India is known for its unbearable conditions at this time of year, just before the monsoon takes hold. Temperatures in the high 30s are routine, with local authorities declaring heatwave conditions only once thermometers reach a stifling 45℃. But the record comes on the back of an exceptionally hot season, with several heatwaves earlier in the year. So what’s to blame for these scorching conditions?
Much of India is in the grip of a massive drought. Water resources are scarce across the country. Dry conditions exacerbate extreme temperatures because the heat energy usually taken up by evaporation heats the air instead.
The complex relationship between droughts and heatwaves is an area of active scientific research, although we know a preceding drought can significantly amplify the intensity and duration of heatwaves.
India’s drought was a possible factor in the earlier heatwaves in April over central and southern India. However, Rajasthan, where 51℃ was recorded, is always bone-dry in May. So the drought made no difference to the record temperature.
The El Niño effectWe have also experienced one of the strongest El Niño events on record. While the current event has recently ceased, its sting is certainly still being felt.
El Niño episodes are associated with higher-than-average global temperatures and have also been a factor in some of India’s past heatwaves. However, there is no direct connection to El Niño in Rajasthan, because its climate at this time of year is so dry anyway.
India also has an extreme air pollution problem. Caused largely by domestic fuel and wood burning, it kills up to 400,000 people every year. This pollution, made up of fine particles called aerosols, also has the effect of cooling the local climate by reflecting or absorbing sunlight before it reaches the ground, thus reducing the likelihood of the most extreme high temperatures.
So although India is no stranger to extreme heat at this time of year, the smog has kept record-breaking high temperatures at bay – until now. This is what makes the record in Phalodi remarkable.
Longer-term heat extremesA study published in 2013 analysed annual trends in extremes and found no significant change in the intensity of extreme Indian temperatures between 1951 and 2010. The high levels of local air pollution were probably behind the lack of change.
However, the study found a significant increase in the frequency of extreme temperatures and a remarkable trend in the duration of warm spells in India, as the map below shows. Warm spells, defined as at least six days of extreme temperatures relative to the location and time of year, increased by at least three days per decade over 1951-2010 – the largest trend recorded globally.
![](https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/124272/width754/image-20160527-883-ww6f9w.png)
It is worth keeping in mind that these trends are annual and are influenced by extremes all year round. However, monthly trends in the frequency of Indian temperature extremes for May, which can be found on the CLIMDEX climate database, show an increase over the past 60 years.
Based on local station data, the Indian Meteorological Department reported that many northern states experienced an average of eight heatwave days each March-July between 1961-2010. Trends in “normal” and “severe” heatwaves increased over this time, and in particular over the last decade of the analysis.
Some Indian regions also tended towards longer and more intense heatwaves after an El Niño, and northwestern states of India, where Phalodi is located, tend to experience more intense events anyway. Trends in the intensity of extreme temperatures are less clear and vary across the country.
Different spatial and temporal scales and methods of quantifying extreme temperature hamper a direct comparison of the two studies described above. However, they both document an increase in the frequency of extreme temperatures over India, which is consistent with many other regions worldwide. Heatwave indices and the hottest yearly temperature have only increased significantly in a relatively small region of western India.
What will the future bring?Most climate models do not do a great job of capturing observed trends in heatwaves over India, because large-scale models struggle to accurately represent the localised effect of aerosols.
It is therefore difficult to use them in great detail for future projections, particularly if pollution levels continue or even increase. However, if air pollution is reduced, temperatures will rise with a vengeance. We know this from experience over Europe, where summer temperature trends were virtually zero up to the 1980s and very strong afterwards, once air pollution was controlled.
Even though this is the hottest time of the year for the region, the recent weather should not be dismissed as regular. It is feasible that India’s pollution problem has been “hiding” extreme heat spikes.
While any clean-up activities will have many positive local health impacts, these are likely to cause more intense heatwaves in future. This will be amplified by background warming due to climate change, which is also likely to drive increases in the frequency of temperature extremes.
Last year India and neighbouring Pakistan suffered similarly atrocious conditions, killing thousands of people. This year’s death toll is already over 1,000, with numbers sure to rise further.
India is already highly vulnerable to the health impacts of oppressive heatwaves and, as climate change continues, this vulnerability will grow. It is therefore imperative that heat plans are put in place to protect the population. That’s a difficult prospect in places that lack communications infrastructure or widespread access to air conditioning.
In the longer term, this episode shows that the global warming targets agreed in Paris have to be taken seriously, so that unprecedented heatwaves and their deadly impacts don’t become unmanageable in this part of the world.
![The Conversation](https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/59883/count.gif)
Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh receives funding from the following projects: European Climate Extremes: Interpretation and Attribution (EUCLEIA), and World Weather Attribution (WWA).
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G7 nations pledge to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025
Leaders of the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the EU urge all countries to join them in eliminating support for coal, oil and gas in a decade
The G7 nations have for the first time set a deadline for the ending most fossil fuel subsidies, saying government support for coal, oil and gas should end by 2025.
The leaders of the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union encouraged all countries to join them in eliminating “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” within a decade.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Mountain goats, beavers and whooping cranes are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
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Chicken embryo tests can prevent practice of gassing billions of cockerels
Scientists create sex identification tests that can identify male chicks before they hatch
The current practice of gassing billions of male chicks within a day of hatching because they cannot lay eggs could be stopped thanks to a new embryo gender test.
Globally some 3.2 billion cockerels are killed within hours of breaking free of their eggs each year.
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Meteorologists are seeing global warming's effect on the weather | Paul Douglas
Weather is becoming more extreme, and meteorologists are taking notice
Whatever happened to normal weather? Earth has always experienced epic storms, debilitating drought, and biblical floods. But lately it seems the treadmill of disruptive weather has been set to fast-forward. God’s grandiose Symphony of the Seasons, the natural ebb and flow of the atmosphere, is playing out of tune, sounding more like a talent-free second grade orchestra, with shrill horns, violins screeching off-key, cymbal crashes coming in at the wrong time. Something has changed.
My company, AerisWeather, tracks global weather for Fortune 500 companies trying to optimize supply chains, increase profitability, secure facilities, and ensure the safety of their employees and customers. It’s my 4th weather-technology company. Our team is constantly analyzing patterns, providing as much lead-time of impending weather extremes as possible. As a serial entrepreneur I respond to data, facts and evidence. If I spin the data and only see what I want to see, I go out of business. I lay off good people. I can’t afford to look away when data makes me uncomfortable.
Continue reading...Swaziland acting as 'puppet' to South Africa in bid to legalise rhino horn trade
Top conservationists criticise the proposal – announced just days after neighbouring South Africa dropped its bid for legal trade – saying it will open the gates for a black market
Swaziland has been accused by one of the world’s leading conservationists of being a puppet of South Africa in a bid to open the floodgates to a potentially calamitous legal rhino horn trade.
South Africa appointed a committee to study the idea of trading horn internationally, which has been banned for more than four decades, but the government backed away from such a proposal in April.
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