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Scientists say a pest that destroys maize is spreading rapidly across Africa and could reach Asia and the Mediterranean in the next few years.

Once too precious to use, now too cheap to notice – the significance of the light bulb is profound.

JA Solar provided export buyer's credit insurance to export around 300 MW JA Solar modules for a PV project developed by ENEL in Brazil.

Tritium has officially opened the doors of its first overseas premises, based in Torrance, California.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 9 February 1917

An alder, its roots undermined by the current just below a bend, fell some years ago and formed a dam across the stream; below the obstacle the silt collected until a long, narrow, sandy islet was formed. On this the snow now lies, a white patch in midstream, and across its narrowest neck is a line of footprints – the “seals” of an otter. I noticed them first last Sunday, immediately after the fall; the otter had been out hunting for its breakfast. These otter footmarks are peculiarly broad; they cannot be confused with the prints left by a dog; indeed, no rat-hunting dog had been there since the snow fell, for there were no marks on either bank. The otter had come down stream, landed and crossed the islet, and entered the water again. From the size of the prints it was only a small animal, but it was pleasing to find that there are some about; as I have no wish for otter hounds to come or for traps to be put down I do not mention the name of the stream, but it is not far from Manchester.

A Congleton correspondent was astonished to see a gull feeding in his garden a week ago. The black-headed gull is now so widely distributed over Cheshire that I should have thought it occurred near, Congleton, though doubtless usually avoiding gardens.

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You’ve probably heard about El Niño, the climate system that brings dry and often hotter weather to Australia over summer.

You might also know that climate change is likely to intensify drought conditions, which is one of the reasons climate scientists keep talking about the desperate need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the damaging consequences if we don’t.

El Niño is driven by changes in the Pacific Ocean, and shifts around with its opposite, La Niña, every 2-7 years, in a cycle known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

But that’s only part of the story. There’s another important piece of nature’s puzzle in the Pacific Ocean that isn’t often discussed.

It’s called the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, or IPO, a name coined by a study which examined how Australia’s rainfall, temperature, river flow and crop yields changed over decades.

Since El Niño means “the boy” in Spanish, and La Niña “the girl”, we could call the warm phase of the IPO “El Tío” (the uncle) and the negative phase “La Tía” (the auntie).

These erratic relatives are hard to predict. El Tío and La Tía phases have been compared to a stumbling drunk. And honestly, can anyone predict what a drunk uncle will say at a family gathering?

What is El Tío?

Like ENSO, the IPO is related to the movement of warm water around the Pacific Ocean. Begrudgingly, it shifts its enormous backside around the great Pacific bathtub every 10-30 years, much longer than the 2-7 years of ENSO.

The IPO’s pattern is similar to ENSO, which has led climate scientists to think that the two are strongly linked. But the IPO operates on much longer timescales.

We don’t yet have conclusive knowledge of whether the IPO is a specific climate mechanism, and there is a strong school of thought which proposes that it is a combination of several different mechanisms in the ocean and the atmosphere.

Despite these mysteries, we know that the IPO had an influence on the global warming “hiatus” - the apparent slowdown in global temperature increases over the early 2000s.

Global temperatures are on the up, but the IPO affects the rate of warming. Author provided, data from NOAA, adapted from England et al. (2014) Nat. Clim. Change Temperamental relatives

When it comes to global temperatures we know that our greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution are the primary driver of the strong warming of the planet. But how do El Tío and La Tía affect our weather and climate from year to year and decade to decade?

Superimposed on top of the familiar long-term rise in global temperatures are some natural bumps in the road. When you’re hiking up a massive mountain, there are a few dips and hills along the way.

Several recent studies have shown that the IPO phases, El Tío and La Tía, have a temporary warming and cooling influence on the planet.

Rainfall around the world is also affected by El Tío and La Tía, including impacts such as floods and drought in the United States, China, Australia and New Zealand.

In the negative phase of the IPO (La Tía) the surface temperatures of the Pacific Ocean are cooler than usual near the equator and warmer than usual away from the equator.

Since about the year 2000, some of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases has been getting buried in the deep Pacific Ocean, leading to a slowdown in global warming over about the last 15 years. It appears as though we have a kind auntie, La Tía perhaps, who has been cushioning the blow of global warming. For the time being, anyway.

The flip side of our kind auntie is our bad-tempered uncle, El Tío. He is partly responsible for periods of accelerated warming, like the period from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

The IPO has been in its “kind auntie” phase for well over a decade now. But the IPO could be about to flip over to El Tío. If that happens, it is not good news for global temperatures – they will accelerate upwards.

Models getting better

One of the challenges to climate science is to understand how the next decade, and the next couple of decades, will unravel. The people who look after our water and our environment want to know things like how fast our planet will warm in the next 10 years, and whether we will have major droughts and floods.

To do this we can use computer models of Earth’s climate. In our recently published paper in Environmental Research Letters, we evaluated how well a large number of models from around the world simulate the IPO. We found that the models do surprisingly well on some points, but don’t quite simulate the same degree of slow movement (the stubborn behaviour) of El Tío and La Tía that we observe in the real world.

But some climate models are better at simulating El Tío and La Tía. This is useful because it points the way to better models that could be used to understand the next few decades of El Tío, La Tía and climate change.

However, more work needs to be done to predict the next shift in the IPO and climate change. This is the topic of a new set of experiments that are going to be part the next round of climate model comparisons.

With further model development and new observations of the deep ocean available since 2005, scientists will be able to more easily answer some of these important questions.

Whatever the case, cranky old El Tío is waiting just around the corner. His big stick is poised, ready to give us a massive hiding: a swift rise in global temperatures over the coming decades.

And like a big smack, that would be no laughing matter.

Ben Henley receives funding from an ARC Linkage Project and is an associate investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Chris Folland receives funding from the UK Met Office via contract the Joint. BEIS/Defra contract GA1101.

David Karoly receives funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and and ARC Linkage grant. He is a member of the Climate Change Authority and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

Mandy Freund receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Jaci Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Team of researchers discover three of the frogs once listed as possibly extinct in first reported sighting since 1962

A rare frog that had not been seen in decades has been found in Zimbabwe, researchers have said.

The Artholeptis troglodytes, also known as the “cave squeaker” because of its preferred habitat, was discovered in 1962, but there were no reported sightings since then. An international red list of threatened species tagged the frog as critically endangered and possibly extinct.

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David Rose penned an attack described by expert as “so wrong it’s hard to know where to start”

In this new political era, climate scientists and their science are under attack. The attack is from multiple fronts, from threats to pull funding of the important instruments they use to measure climate change, to slashing their salaries and jobs. But there is a real fear of renewed personal attacks, and it appears those fears are now being realized. What the attackers do is identify and isolate scientists – a process termed the “Serengeti Strategy” by well-known and respected scientist Michael Mann who suffered these types of attacks for years.

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Work to preserve the crumbling birthplace of radar is to get under way later this year.

The rhino found on a Norfolk beach dates back about 700,000 years.

Ellen MacArthur and the New Plastic Economy initiative are determined to make a real difference in tackling the terrible problem of our plastic-polluted oceans

Last summer Adidas released a good-looking trainer with uppers made using plastic recovered from the ocean. Everyone was very excited, but my response was: “That’s not the most efficient way of cleaning up the ocean.”

Small bits of plastic packaging such as lids, sachets and films pose the biggest nightmare

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Nasa releases a video of the ISS crew preparing to watch the Super Bowl from 250 miles above Earth.

Borth y Gest, Snowdonia I’ve seen glaucous gulls squabbling around rubbish-tips on Baffin Island, but never before in Wales

Recent winter storm-surges from the cold north brought with them surprising visitors. Walking the coast path westwards I looked up and studied a clamorous swarm of gulls, vivid against a gunmetal sky. One, singled out in my glass, was bulkier than its companions, translucent somehow in the subdued light, its long wings white-fringed – a glaucous gull, Larus hyperboreus.

I’ve seen these fine seabirds before, squabbling around rubbish-tips at Iqpiarjuk and Pangnirtung on Baffin Island; or bathing in turquoise pools atop icebergs in the Davis Strait; or following the boat in which I crossed Admiralty Inlet when bound for the Brodeur Peninsula in quest of narwhal. Until now I’d never had a clear sighting of one in Wales, though it’s merely uncommon rather than rare as a visitor here.

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Gustaaf Hallegraeff has embarked on a program collecting sediment cores from along the Australian east coast, including Tasmania. The information will help interpret the recent large changes to aquatic ecosystems.

How do you rid your gardens of those pesky creatures- the common garden snail?

If the US shifts course on climate change policy, what are the implications for the rest of the world?

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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An otter family, a diving kingfisher and the Amazon coral reef are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Prime minister Stefan Löfven calls the Trump administration’s approach worrying as he announces new law binding future governments to a goal of carbon neutrality by 2045

Sweden has criticised the Trump administration’s approach to climate policy as it announced legislation binding future governments to a goal of phasing out greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, among the most ambitious by any developed nation.

“The position we hear from the new [US] administration is worrying,” prime minister Stefan Löfven said after announcing an ambitious new climate law promising zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

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Charity calls for tougher legislation to prevent shooting, poisoning and trapping of birds such as peregrine falcons, red kites, buzzards and hen harriers

Almost 200 reports of shooting, trapping and destruction of birds of prey were received by the RSPB in 2015, the charity said.

Some 64 out of the 196 reports were confirmed, including the shooting or attempted shooting of 46 birds of prey, including 16 buzzards, 11 peregrines, three red kites, one red-footed falcon and one hen harrier, a new report from the RSPB said.

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