Feed aggregator

The environmental impact of producing a loaf of bread has been analysed in depth - from the farm to the supermarket shelf.

One of UK's top scientists, Sir Paul Nurse, says experts are being "derided and pushed back".

Rangers lost their lives in Kenya, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India

Eight wildlife rangers have lost their lives in four separate countries, in a week that highlighted the numerous hazards rangers face in protecting the world’s wild lands and species.

“It’s a tough week when we lose eight of our ranger family; some to poachers’ bullets and some to the other dangers that come with the territory,” said Sean Willmore, founder and director of the Thin Green Line Foundation, which supports widows and children of rangers killed in the line of duty.

Continue reading...

How worrying are the nitrogen dioxide levels at your child’s school?

Tens of thousands of children at more than 800 schools, nurseries and colleges in London are being exposed to illegal levels of air pollution that risk causing lifelong health problems.

The Guardian revealed on Friday that there are 802 educational institutions in the capital where pupils as young as three are being exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide that are within 150 metres of nitrogen dioxide pollution levels that exceed the EU legal limit of 40µg/m3 (40 micrograms per cubic metre of air).

Continue reading...

As with all such lists, the 300 ‘scientists’ badly lack climate expertise

If you read my articles regularly, you may have noticed multiple times I have stated that the scientific argument is over; there are no longer any reputable scientists that deny the overwhelming human influence in our climate. An open letter published last week by the anti-environmentalists proves my point.

If you read the headlines, it might have seemed impressive: “300 Scientists Tell Trump to Leave UN Climate Agreement.” Wow, 300 scientists. That’s a lot right? Actually, it’s a pitiful list.

Continue reading...

Council budgets for parks may have been cut, but you still love your local parks. We asked readers to share their pictures via Guardian Witness and here are some of our favourites.

Continue reading...

Fiskavaig, Skye This huge island is a complication of landscapes, and on its west coast you walk the divide between them all

The lady had drawn a map to direct me to the beach: there it was, easy enough, but where a road continued off the edge she’d inscribed an arrow, and the words “end of the world”. Curious, I follow the road off her map, past ancient rusting crofts on to a ribbon of singletrack, to where it stops. A knoll stands beyond a sheep gate and I climb it.

What I see from its knotty top is a place of transition. Beneath the knoll the land stops, falling to a sort of lagoon of strange, rumpled headlands and islands like pieces flayed off the land to drift. It seems this coast doesn’t want to commit to the ocean: here the waters of Lochs Harport and Bracadale coalesce into a strange enclosure of the Minch. Beyond, only South Uist’s taper offers harbour from the Atlantic’s ferocious north water.

Continue reading...

The Australian Heritage Council has called for comments on the heritage values of Centennial Park and whether it should be included in the National Heritage List. The period for comments closes on 28 April 2017.

The Australian Heritage Council is now assessing the place and has called for comments on its heritage values and whether it should remain in the National Heritage List. The period for comments closes on 28 April 2017

Get ready for heavier rain. Shutterstock

As the planet warms, rainfall and weather patterns will change. As temperatures rise, the amount of water in the atmosphere will increase. Some areas will become wetter, while others, like southern Australia, will likely be drier.

One measure of atmospheric moisture is called “precipitable water”. You may not have heard the term before, but will likely hear about it more often in the future. Both climate scientists and meteorologists are increasingly looking at it when studying weather charts.

There is a lot of uncertainty about future rainfall patterns, but there is one aspect that models have consistently emphasised — a larger proportion of rainfall will be heavy, even in some areas that are becoming drier. Atmospheric moisture is a part of this, and precipitable water is one measure of it.

So why do climate models project that we will get more heavy rainfall as the planet warms? At the heart of it is basic physics, which tells us that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour than a cooler one — about 7% more for every 1℃ rise in temperature.

But meteorology will also play its part, and in the real world we have recently seen the sorts of weather systems that will drive heavier rainfall outside the tropics.

More tropical weather

A stream of very moist air from the tropics can often cause very heavy rain. These streams of moisture are sometimes called atmospheric rivers, but also have names such as the Pineapple Express in the United States or the Northwest Cloudbands here in Australia. An atmospheric river recently drenched California.

These sorts of tropical excursions happen naturally, but relatively infrequently. As the planet warms, however, regions like southern Australia and northern California can expect more tropical rainfall events, even as average rainfall declines.

Following the water

Like rainfall, precipitable water is measured in millimetres. It is derived by calculating how much liquid water you would end up with if you condensed all of the water vapour above your head — from Earth’s surface to the top of the atmosphere.

We calculate this using measurements from weather balloons, from satellite data, or from weather and climate models. The greatest amount of water vapour is generally near Earth’s surface, and it decreases with height.

Higher precipitable water values mean that more water is available for potential rainfall. We generally experience this as hot and humid weather. Just how much rain actually falls is dependent on the accompanying meteorological conditions. Under conditions favourable to thunderstorm activity, for example, high precipitable water translates into heavier rainfall.

Because it shows the location and movement of moisture, precipitable water is a great way for meteorologists to follow the movement of weather systems across the globe. In the animation above, it is easy to see tropical moisture streaming out from the equator toward the poles. Due to climate change, weather forecasters will increasingly be on the lookout for very high or record levels of precipitable water associated with those events.

In Australia, several heavy rainfall events in recent years have been associated with record-high levels of precipitable water. In late December 2016, heavy rainfall across central and southeast Australia was associated with record-high December precipitable water, with weather stations in Giles and Mount Gambier recording their highest values for any month. Heavy rains have continued over the western part of Australia through January 2017.

Earlier in 2016, record-high June precipitable water was also recorded at Sydney and Hobart, with Hobart recording a level on June 6 that was 38% higher than the previous record for that month. Both of these events involved tropical air laden with moisture sourced from record or near-record warm oceans, and drawn over southern Australia.

In both cases, heavy rainfall was widespread, with some record high daily rainfall totals.

Globally, as well as being the warmest year on record, 2016 broke records for global precipitable water in at least one international data set.

It should be noted that these record values are drawn from data covering just the period since 1992, as historical precipitable water values obtained using upper-air measurements of temperature and humidity are not easily comparable with present-day measurements. As such, precipitable water is more useful to weather forecasters than to climate scientists — although it becomes more useful as the length of the dataset increases, and can be used to evaluate model simulations.

The impact

The trend in precipitable water is expected to lead to an increase in the highest possible rainfall intensities and an increase in the frequency of extremely high daily rainfall totals, regardless of how average rainfall may change. A consequence of higher rainfall rates in a warmer world is increased flash flooding and also riverine flooding.

The implications of climate projections for heavier rainfall are many. In future, changes in the upper envelope of extreme rainfall may impact on the way we design things like urban water flows, buildings and flood mitigation. The fact that individual rainfall events can become heavier than the past in regions experiencing overall declines in rainfall and streamflow is an added nuance.

Beyond rainfall, higher moisture levels in the atmosphere also mean slower evaporation of sweat from the skin, making you feel hotter during particular heatwaves, and making evaporative air conditioning systems less effective. Just as changing temperatures influence decisions in areas such as planning, so too will increasing humidity and heavy rainfall events, even when they are episodic.

Karl Braganza is the Head of the Climate Monitoring Section in the Bureau of Meteorology's Environment and Research Division. Karl Braganza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Acacia Pepler is completing a PhD with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, which is funded by the Australian Research Council.

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

Co-founder of Eden Project wants to bring the concept to Hobart, in co-operation with MONA art gallery and Australia's science community.

The crisis continues Although electricity consumption and pool prices fell sharply this week due to more moderate weather, 2018 base load futures rose another 5%. That’s three weeks in a row prices have risen 5%  and FY18 futures prices have now cracked the $100 MWh mark in all States ($99 MWh in Victoria). Prices in […]

In every State no more than 2 players account for more than 50% of generation market share. That doesn't encourage competition and is pushing up prices.

Supporters of carbon capture plants on coal power stations are seeking to sell the story they are cheaper than renewables – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The EIS proposed by Labor and others is a wasteful rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme designed to favour gas, and which will lift energy prices more than they need be.

Lake Cowal in New South Wales is home once again to thousands of waterbirds; meet a young winemaker with a real connection to the earth; and UK farmer Jim Chapman spreads the farm-safe message.

New book outlines how the Magritte Group - a fossil fuel lobby - has tried to destroy climate and renewable energy policy in Europe.

Originally published in the Guardian on 27 February 1967

THE CAIRNGORMS: It didn’t seem at all strange to discover a bedraggled reindeer sheltering from the storm just inside the entrance to the chair-lift the other day, for the wind was like a knife and the ski-runs like tilted ice-rinks. Of course, he might have merely come in for the company – you could see his fellows higher up the snowbound hillside – or he might have been hoping for a chance of something more succulent than the frozen heather roots these creatures seem to live on. But he wasn’t very friendly, responding to a cautious stroking by an angry swing of the head, so I left him standing disconsolate near the ticket office and looking as if he’d lost both Father Christmas and his sledge. I suppose they’re harmless enough although a notice farther down the mountain warns “Beware of Reindeer,” but doesn’t explain why. These were the only wild life we saw in the hills during a wild week, except for the ptarmigan in their white winter plumage hurrying through the snow, and once a handsome pheasant strutting across the track through the Rothiemurchus pines. Indeed, there were days, so fierce the winds, when these popular slopes were even deserted by the humans who normally at this time of year swarm like ants, and one day, especially, when I seemed quite alone in the mountains. Ski-ing that day was out of the question – you needed ice-axe and crampons just to get across the runs – and the wind so strong on the plateau it took you all your time to avoid being blown over the edge. But down by Loch Morlich in the late afternoon the wind suddenly dropped for half an hour, and there was the quiet splendour of purpling hills and a foreground of silvered loch with the birches and pines showing black against a golden sunset like a Chinese painting.

Continue reading...

A crucial decision on a rule change that could have a critical impact on the future of battery storage in Australia has been delayed again by AEMC.

If the third warmest January on record occurred during a La Niña event, scientists are asking what El Niño has in store

Right now south-eastern Australia is having an unbearable summer. Temperatures in Sydney have regularly been in the upper 30s in recent weeks, while inland areas have had several days in the mid-40s.

January was the hottest month on record for Sydney since 1859, and the persistent warmth into February (with many places topping 35C day after day) may topple the New South Wales record of 50 hot days in a row.

Continue reading...