Renewables under attack

If you are colour blind there is sometimes a blurry line when it comes to discerning the difference between green and blue - as British Prime Minister David Cameron seems to be making increasingly clear.

His bold claim on coming to power for the first time in 2010 to be leading the “greenest government ever” was rapidly dismantled - almost as quickly as the floods and storms of 2013 destroyed homes and livelihoods.

This summer the UK has experienced one of its wettest ever August months and globally the year once again promises to be amongst the hottest on record. Glaciers are retreating and global sea levels have risen by 8 cm in two decades as a result of warmer ocean water and melting ice caps.

A growing body of evidence suggests that climate change is very real - and international negotiations on the establishment of climate change controls are scheduled to reach their peak in Paris in December.

Yet within a few months of being elected for a second term, Cameron’s majority Conservative government has pretty much made it clear it wants very little to do with renewable technology.

In June it announced cuts to financial support to developers of new onshore wind turbines, the cheapest form of renewable power available. And last week it announced it intends to slash subsidies that help families and small businesses install solar panels.

Why have David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne decided over the last few months to abandon key government commitments to protecting the environment and its pledges to create new green technologies that could wean us off our urge to burn fossil fuels?

Meanwhile, a commitment by Britain’s biggest suppliers six biggest energy companies to help tackle climate change has been called into question after it emerged all have quietly dropped their green electricity tariffs.

Despite the major suppliers - which together provide 90 per cent of UK household power -  all making public commitments to tackle climate change by reducing carbon emissions not one of now offers a renewable energy tariff.

The UK’s solar industry, which is already reeling from a wave of damaging policy changes, was shocked and taken by surprise by last week's government publication of its scheduled review of the Feed-in-Tariff  (FIT) scheme for supporting small-scale renewables.

The Solar Trade Association (STA) had already been engaging with officials and ministers over the last few months demonstrating how the FIT framework could be reformed to provide better value for money while targeting parity with fossil energy around 2020.

Its ‘Solar Independence Plan for Britain’, published in June, sets out proposals based on a detailed budget model of the solar Feed-in Tariff. The STA estimates that it will cost just another £1.70 per year on energy bills between now and 2020 to deliver a million more solar homes and grid parity.

Mike Landy, head of policy at the STA, says: “We don't agree with these self-defeating proposals and will be urging DECC to take up our alternative. A sudden cut combined with the threat of scheme closure is a particularly bad idea – it will create a huge boom and bust that is not only very damaging to solar businesses and jobs but does nothing to help budget constraints.

“We really are astonished at how self-defeating these proposals are. Instead, we are calling on the government to work with the solar industry to deliver our plan for a stable glide path to subsidy-free solar.”

Like a number of other issues that have suddenly come to the fore, the Conservative manifesto for the elections in May said nothing about attacking the British solar industry, which has flourished thanks to public support and delivered unprecedented cost cuts.

The STA, along with 100 local authorities, community energy groups and professional associations, has already written to the Prime Minister in support of FITs and days that when Parliament returns it intends to grow this alliance and fight hard for a more sensible policy.

Landy adds: “If DECC (Department of Energy & Climate Change) and the Treasury insist on making such damaging and unjustified cuts they will need to develop alternative policy proposals to drive commercial sector deployment. The upcoming Energy Efficiency Tax Review provides exactly the opportunity to do so. But we need to see some positive proposals very quickly to mitigate the shattering of confidence across the solar industry.”

It would seem that the government has once again adopted a short-sighted, market-driven attitude - not just from the perspective of national prestige but also in terms of lost opportunity. Sooner or later the world is going to end up depending on renewable power and the UK has much to gain from developing not shrinking its expertise and influence.

The proposals set out by DECC, which is itself under threat, will see tariff rates for domestic schemes (now up to 10kW) cut from 12.9p today to 1.63p/kWh next January. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 23 October and you can make your own comments using this link - online survey

Sea levels rising

Detroit skyline.                                                                                                          Clive Simpson

Essential indicators of Earth’s changing climate continue to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers such as rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels and greenhouse gases all setting new records in 2014. 

The findings are included in the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) 'State of the Climate in 2014' report published this week.

NOAA warns cities and businesses to expect ever higher levels of coastal flood risk after sea levels hit record highs. The agency confirmed that average sea levels have risen by 3.2 mm every year since 1993 - meaning that in 2014 sea levels were about 67 mm higher than in 1993.

The report, which is compiled annually by US government climate scientists, also revealed land and sea temperatures reaching record highs in 2014, while atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases also soared.

Ocean temperatures are at their warmest since records began 135 years ago, the report says. The record warming is contributing to sea level rise - helping to melt glaciers more quickly and causing ocean expansion (water slowly expands as it warms).

Greg Johnson, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, suggested thinking of the warming effect as if it were a fly wheel or freight train.

"It takes a big push to get it going but it is moving now and will continue to move long after we continue to stop pushing it," he explained.

The report also noted that warmer ocean temperatures raise the risk of severe storms, which are made more dangerous by high ocean levels. Warm ocean temperatures in the Pacific are also producing warmer winters and worsening drought conditions on the US West Coast, scientists said.

The news came on the same day as a new joint report was released by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Lancet Commission, revealing that climate change is jeopardizing the future health of the human population.

Braulio Ferreira De Souza Dias, scientific advisor for the Lancet Commission, said: “We are moving closer than ever before to triggering potentially irreversible impacts, and jeopardizing the health of our ecosystems and that of present and future generations.”

It also comes in the same week as a major report argued that we should prepare for climate change in the same way as we would a nuclear war or terrorist attack - by planning for the worst-case scenario.

Even a small increase in sea level can cause a large increase in the risk of flooding. A global sea level rise of just one metre - the most we are likely to see this century, according to the report's lead author Sir David King - turns what would have been a one-in-a-hundred year flood in New York into a twice a year catastrophe.

State of the Climate in 2014

Global is new local

It turns out that the residents of Beijing and Delhi are not the only ones feeling the effects of their cities’ air pollution - an unwanted by-product of coal-fired economic development.

Researchers looking at how Asian pollution is changing weather and climate around the globe and have found pollution from China affects cloud development in the North Pacific and strengthens extra-tropical cyclones.

These large storms punctuate US winters and springs about once a week, often producing heavy snow and intense cold.

Tainted air is known to cross the Pacific Ocean, adding to homegrown air-quality problems on the US West Coast. But now scientists say the story doesn’t stop there - because pollution doesn't just pollute.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the California Institute of Technology, both in Pasadena, California, are looking at how Asian pollution is changing weather and climate around the globe.

Scientists call airborne particles of any sort - human-produced or natural - aerosols. And the simplest effect of increasing aerosols is to increase clouds.

To form clouds, airborne water vapour needs particles on which to condense. With more aerosols, there can be more or thicker clouds.

During the last 30 years, clouds over the Pacific Ocean have grown deeper, and storms in the Northwest Pacific have become about 10 percent stronger. This is the same time frame as the economic boom in Asia.

JPL researcher Jonathan Jiang and his postdoctoral fellow, Yuan Wang, designed a series of experiments to see if there was a connection between the two phenomena.

They used a numerical model that included weather factors such as temperature, precipitation and barometric pressure over the Pacific Ocean as well as aerosol transport - the movement of aerosols around the Earth.

They did two sets of simulations. The first used aerosol concentrations thought to have existed before the industrial revolution. The other used current aerosol emissions. The difference between the two sets showed the effects of increased pollution on weather and climate.

"We found that pollution from China affects cloud development in the North Pacific and strengthens extra-tropical cyclones," said Wang.

He explained that increased pollution makes more water condense onto aerosols in these storms. During condensation, energy is released in the form of heat. That heat adds to the roiling upward and downward airflows within a cloud so that it grows deeper and bigger.

"Large, convective weather systems play a very important role in Earth's atmospheric circulation," Jiang said, bringing tropical moisture up to the temperate latitudes. The storms form about once a week between 25 and 50 degrees north latitude and cross the Pacific from the southwest to the northeast, picking up Asia's pollutant outflow along the way.

Wang thinks the cold winter that the US east coast endured in 2013 probably had something to do with these stronger extratropical cyclones - and the intense storms could also have affected the upper-atmosphere wind pattern, called the polar jet stream.

Jiang and Wang are now working on a new experiment to analyse how increased Asian emissions are affecting weather even farther afield than North America. Although their analysis is in a preliminary stage, it suggests that the aerosols are having a measurable effect on climatic conditions around the globe.

Closer to home - a gas-fired power station in Spalding, Lincs, UK.                    Photo: Clive Simpson

Jiang says that Asian emissions have made him and some other climate researchers conceptualise Earth differently.

"Before, we thought about the north-south contrast: the northern hemisphere has more land, the Southern Hemisphere has more ocean. This difference is important to global atmospheric circulation and now, in addition, there's a west-east contrast.

“Europe and North America are reducing emissions - Asia is increasing them. That change also affects the global circulation and perturbs the climate."

Report by Clive Simpson freelance journalist

Farmers fight flood threat

High tide for the newly formed Wash Frontagers' Group

Vast swaths of the Fens in eastern England could be catastrophically flooded by the next North Sea surge if nothing is done to shore up sea defences.

Much of the country’s prime arable land around the Wash is below sea level and farmers say that more than 80 miles of neglected sea defences need urgent attention.

The £2.3bn spend confirmed by the government for flood projects around the country this week earmarks nothing for raising defences across one of the country’s most at risk areas.

Farmers of land around the Wash marked the first anniversary of last December’s tidal surge with the formation of the Wash Frontagers' Group (WFG) and an urgent call to action.

They are concerned that the region’s farming and food production industry - worth an estimated £3bn to the UK economy - would be fatally damaged if sea walls are breached.

           

Stafford Proctor, who farms at Long Sutton and is WFG chairman, says the Wash sea defences protect some of the country’s most productive farmland.

And he described last winter's floods across the Somerset Levels as being like "a drop in the ocean" compared to what could happen in the Fens.

"Last year's tidal surge showed just how vulnerable our land, homes, businesses and the whole area is to sea water inundation,” he says.

“In Boston alone, 700 homes and businesses were affected. Just think what the effect of a massive inundation would be on the economy of the whole Fen region. It would be devastating.”

           

Recent figures show that behind the protective seawalls there are 365,261 hectares of farm land, more than 80 per cent of which is classified as at risk of flooding.

The region, which includes South Lincolnshire and parts of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, is known as the Fens Strategic Area and is home to around 655,000 people spread across remote rural communities in towns and villages.

“We were very close a catastrophe across this area and we don't want people to revert back to the status quo as though nothing had happened,” says Proctor.

Stafford Proctor - WFG chairman

According to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) county adviser for South Lincolnshire, Simon Fisher, raising the sea defences is not just about protecting the future for farmland.

“It includes everything else that makes life tick - people, communities, towns, industry, agriculture, environment, utilities, energy generation and transport infrastructure,” he says.

“A huge amount of fresh produced is produced from South Lincolnshire and the financial contribution this county makes to the economic well-being of this country is worth billions of pounds.

“If we look at the true value of local agriculture and its upward supply chain, it is £3 billion plus and supports in excess of 60,000 jobs in the Fens.

“We need to protect the land and businesses surrounding the Wash and find the funding to raise the sea defences that so many people depend on.

“If you had a major sea inundation around here, no matter how well defended the towns of Boston, Kings Lynn, Wisbech and Spalding are, they are going to be cut off and sat in the middle of a giant pond.”

WFG members (from left): Nicola Currie, Simon Fisher, Simeon Disley, Stafford Proctor, Gavin Lane

Fisher is also dismissive of the concept of ‘managed retreat’, a suggestion put forward by some wildlife organisations, including the RSPB and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.

“There are some very good examples of tiny bits of land being left to the sea and that is probably perfectly feasible,” he says.

“But when you are talking of the Fenland area as a whole you'd be heading inland to Peterborough before you get to a point where it wouldn't flood anymore.”

Proctor is sceptical too. “The argument for managed retreat is creating more ‘green’ areas to try and dissipate the waves - but if anyone was down here last year they would have seen there weren't any waves.

“It was like a silent invasion,” he recalls. “The water just came up flat and got higher and higher. No amount of green marsh will protect you against that.”

Negligible sea bank maintenance work on this part of the coast has been carried out since the mid-1908s and WGF estimates the cost to fix the most needy parts of the sea banks would stretch to around £100 million.

“Compared to what is at stake everyone says this makes a lot of sense,” adds Proctor, who farms 2000 acres of Crown Estate land.

“But in order to do something we need public support and funding - the whole point of what we are trying to do is to raise awareness of the need to do something urgently.”

Country Landowners Association (CLA) eastern regional director, Nicola Currie, believes the WGF will only succeed if it garners support from the Environment Agency and Natural England.

“Under the current cost benefit system, farm land and rural areas miss out because government funding for flood and coastal defences is prioritised for schemes that protect people and property,” she says.

Defra minister Dan Rogerson has indicated his support for the WFG project andsuggests that up to 25 per cent more schemes for coastal defence work could go ahead through partnership funding than if costs were met by central government alone.

“There are real challenges to raising funds locally, which is why the CLA is calling on the Environment Agency and Natural England to be fully supportive of this innovative group,” adds Currie.

“If we continue to do nothing eventually we are going to have a major disaster - we just can't keep carrying on having nemesis like this.

“The only solution is a stitch in time - we have to keep going on sea flood defence and this is why we are calling upon government to help both financially and with changes to legislation to make it easier to get this work done.”

Climate change and rising sea levels mean that storm surges are expected to become more frequent in years to come.

They occur when a rising area of low pressure takes pressure off the surface of the sea allowing it to ‘bulge’ upwards before being pushed down through the North Sea by strong winds.

During last December’s surge parts of the North Sea reached higher levels than the devastating floods of 1953 but sea wall defences around the Wash area largely kept the water at bay.

A new blue plaque marks the level of last December's storm surge

The WFG chose to launch its campaign this week alongside the giant sluice gates of a tiny settlement called Surfleet Seas End, where water is poured into sea channels to keep farm land from flooding.

Here, the Welland and Deepings Internal Drainage Board has just erected a small plaque several metres above the normal sluice gate water level.

It serves as a stark reminder of how sea water came to within just a few inches of bursting these banks at the height of the storm surge during the night of 5 December last year.
 
Report and photographs by Clive Simpson - please contact for further information

Taking our planet's pulse

Photo: Clive Simpson

High resolution radar data maps of Europe, North America and other key parts of the world captured on a space shuttle mission 14 years ago have been made public for the first time this month.

Former Nasa astronaut Kathy Sullivan, now head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), welcomed the release of previously secret data. "The declassification of 30 metre elevation data represents a vast improvement over the previous freely available data set which resolved to just 90 m," she says.

This second tranche of high resolution data to be released under the direction of  President Obama follows on from highly accurate terrain maps of Africa which became available in October.   

Nasa's ground-breaking Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) recorded digital elevation data (DEMs) in February 2000 for over 80 per cent of the globe - but until now only a 90 m resolution version was released.

The 30 m resolution data was kept secret for use by the US military and intelligence agencies - but even the 90 m resolution data revealed for the first time detailed swaths of the planet's topography previously obscured by persistent cloudiness.

"SRTM was among the most significant science missions the shuttle ever performed," says Michael Kobrick, SRTM mission project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). "It's probably the most significant mapping mission of any single type ever."

SRTM consisted of a specially modified radar system comprising two radar antennas - one located in the shuttle's payload bay, the other on the end of a 60 m mast extending into space.

The surface of Earth was mapped numerous times from different perspectives and the combined radar data processed at JPL in California to produce a series of global topographic maps.

Topography influences many natural processes, such as the distribution of plant communities and the associated animals that depend upon them, weather and rainfall patterns, and the flow and storage of surface water.

The digital elevation maps benefit many activities, from aviation safety to civil engineering projects, and the data is helpful in predicting and responding to flooding from severe storms and the threats of coastal inundation associated with storm surges, tsunamis and rising sea-levels.

Dr Sullivan says aid organisations, development banks and decision-makers in developing countries will be able to better map and plan for climate-driven challenges.

“Space-based observations are the foundation for applications so environmental intelligence services are increasingly vital to decision makers in all sectors of society as they confront a rapidly changing world and uncertain future.”

She called upon the world space community to develop new and more resilient Earth observation systems that are now increasingly relied upon “take the pulse” of our planet .

"Measured data of our planet tells us we are living in a worrying world," she said. "We are seeing longer, more frequent and hotter heatwaves over most land masses and we expect to see that trend continue in the future."

Andes mountains in Ecuador, home to the highest active volcano in the world

Data is also revealing the remarkable pace at which Arctic sea ice is continuing to shrink and thin, and the Northern Hemisphere's snow cover is decreasing as global mean surface temperature rises. 

“Sea level has risen an average of 3 mm a year in the last several decades and will continue to rise in the decades ahead which will exacerbate the hazards that coastal communities face from coastal storms,” said Dr Sullivan. “This is a problem because humankind is concentrating increasingly in the coastal settlements.

"Many aspects of climate change will persist for centuries, even if right now we cease all CO2 emissions forever. Carbon that has been emitted in the past decades is locked in and the process that it has unleashed will take centuries more to play out.

"All of this leads to heightened social vulnerability, in a world where the population will increase from the current seven billion to nine billion by 2040 - and that implies that we will have to double the current food supply globally if we are to feed that larger population," she added.

"We are moving into a very different world. Environmental intelligence is a really critical asset and product that the world needs from space. It provides us with foresight about conditions that have not yet come to exist and about the solutions we need to plan ahead for."

Tragedy in Nepal

Ten years ago this weekend I had just arrived in Kathmandu with my good friend, Tim Scott, where I was to start trekking for the second time amongst the wonderful high peaks and scenery of Nepal.

We joined a party of a dozen international trekkers on a three week hike that would take us across Gokoyo Ri at 5,360 m and through the 5,400 m Cho La pass before trekking to Gorak Shep and ascending the 5,500 m Kala Patar, known as the trekker’s ‘mountain’ overlooking Mt Everest and basecamp.

October in Nepal is a peak season for trekkers to gather and work their way along and up the Himalayan mountain trekking routes. Skies are normally clear by day and the sun often shines before the bitter cold returns at dusk.

But the tragedy that unfolded in Nepal this week was on an altogether unprecedented scale. A series of avalanches followed heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions on Tuesday causing a a nightmare scenario with at least 32 people dead and many more missing.

Most of the fatalities happened as the blizzard reached a point on the Annapurna Circuit 100 miles northwest of the capital, Kathmandu. This too is a well-known trekking route in central Nepal and at about 4,500 m it is close to the circuit’s highest point, the Thorung La pass.

Tourists from countries around the world were caught on the mountain and helicopters saved more than 200 survivors stranded in lodges and huts along the route, according to Nepales authorities.

With snowfall from the storm topping six feet in some places, this is probably the worst disaster in the history of Nepal’s trekking business.

The blizzard was the tail end of cyclone Hudhud, which hit the Indian coast a few days earlier and was reportedly one of the strongest storms on record to affect the region. It made landfall in Andhra Pradesh, India, last Sunday and was the equivalent of a category four hurricane.

Scientists are always reluctant to link any one weather event to climate change but they have pointed out in the past that the Himalayas are especially vulnerable to the increased storm intensity expected to result from climate change.

“Storms in that region are getting stronger,” John Stone, an IPCC lead author and adjunct professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, told the Toronto Star. “It is not inconsistent with what scientists have been saying - by making the atmosphere contain more energy, we have increased the likelihood of more frequent and severe storms.”

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, a regional agency based in Kathmandu that serves eight countries, released a report in May showing that rising temperatures caused Nepal’s glaciers to shrink by almost a quarter between 1977 and 2010 - at an average loss of about 15 square miles per year.

The report also pointed out that Nepal’s average temperature change has been two to eight times greater than the global average and says such changes could bring more intense and frequent floods, avalanches and landslides.

In April this year an avalanche - caused by melting ice from the Khumbu ice fall - killed 16 Nepalese guides near Mt Everest base camp in one of the deadliest disasters in the mountain’s history.

Modern  weather forecasting has reduced the risk of being surprised by a killer storm like the one that struck last weekend but the pronounced warming of the Himalayan climate in recent years has made the icefall more unstable than ever and added to the dangers for both trekkers and mountaineers.

A former British Gurkha officer and avid trekker General Sam Cowan is quoted as saying that “no one should have ventured out to cross Thorung La with the weather as threatening as it was”.

But access to our accustomed news media and forecasts is not always so easy in the high and remote mountains and it is unclear at this stage whether those caught in the storm had the benefit of any warning or not.

 

 

All photos: Clive Simpson

All fracked up

Sooner or later if the government’s plan comes off there will be a shale gas fracking site near you. Or you will have a friend or family member who lives near one.

That’s because around 3,000 wells could be drilled at more than 1,000 sites across the country in order to deliver up to a fifth of the country’s annual gas demand to an increasingly power hungry society - welcome to Fracking GB plc!

Today the government began a new round of licensing for onshore oil and gas, which opens up around half of the UK to potential fracking, including national parks in ‘exceptional circumstances’.

The licences are the first step towards exploration but firms will also have to obtain planning consent, permits from the Environment Agency and a sign-off from the Health and Safety Executive.

Fracking involves blasting water, chemicals and sand at high pressure into shale rock formations deep under ground to release the gas held inside.

In announcing the so-called 14th onshore licensing round, Business and Energy Minister Matthew Hancock said: "Unlocking shale gas in Britain has the potential to provide us with greater energy security, jobs and growth.

"We must act carefully, minimising risks, to explore how much of our large resource can be recovered to give the UK a new home-grown source of energy."

Today’s Guardian newspaper reports the government has committed nearly £2.5m of public money to an office to encourage fracking - before a single home has been powered by shale gas.

David Cameron has said the UK is going "all out for shale", with his government offering tax breaks to fracking companies and promising local authorities they will be able to keep 100% of the business rates from fracking operations, rather than 50% as before.

Previously unreleased figures show that the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil (Ougo) - set up in March 2013 to encourage the development of shale gas and oil and coal bed methane - has already spent £568,000 and has been awarded a budget of £1.8m for this financial year.

There are already people living near fracking sites in the north of the country whose homes have been blighted - making insurance difficult and expensive, and significantly reducing property values.

"In pushing forward with their fracking fantasy, Cameron and co are riding roughshod over the climate science," said Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party.

"The science overwhelmingly indicates that 80% of known fossil fuel reserves need to be left underground if we are serious about meeting internationally agreed climate commitments."

She said fracking would add to the huge financial risk of the carbon bubble and called for the use of renewable and conservation technologies to build a sustainable energy policy.

"We need a government that doesn’t want to sacrifice our homes and communities for the profits of oil and gas firms while ignoring the pressing reality of climate change," she added.

The renewable wind power industry has had to deal with a broad range of challenges, particularly visual impact, and so far this doesn’t seem to be on the shale gas radar.

But type ‘shale gas rig’ into an internet search engine and select 'images' to see a taster of what might actually be in store for any community where drilling might take place.

We're likely to see the industrialisation of tracts of the British countryside, gas flaring in the home counties and a steady stream of trucks carrying contaminated water down rural lanes.

Production rates for the UK are expected to be lower than in the US because of lower pressure in UK basins, while costs might be higher because of demanding local environmental standards and the proximity of populated areas.

Analysis by Carbon Tracker estimates that if we are to contain greenhouse gas emissions at a level that preserves a reasonable chance of remaining below the 2C of global average temperature increase (considered a critical danger threshold), then four-fifths of known fossil fuel reserves need to remain locked in the ground.

The official Committee on Climate Change has warned that in the context of the UK’s legally binding climate-change targets, a new ‘dash for gas’ should be Plan Z, not Plan A.

All this makes for a risky backdrop to shale gas development in this country, which the Government seems determined to ignore in its public pronouncements and new round of licensing.

The industry will require major investment to get going and investors will need to be patient in getting a return, as going through the planning process and exploratory drilling will take years of expensive development before commercially useful quantities of gas are produced.

And no one really knows how much of gas can be got out, or how much that will cost both financially and to the environment at large.

Add to that the expectation that it will not in reality reduce energy prices, then the case for shale gas looks a lot more risky than proponents and the Government is suggesting.

The shale gas narrative and tax breaks presented by George Osborne a year ago are also, in part, based on the fear of being 'left behind'.

At the time Osborne said that a technological revolution based on government "getting out of the way of progress" is what we need. He couldn't be more wrong.

Where the country is being left behind, however, is in the development of new environmental technologies, including renewables and carbon capture. If we are to keep up in these areas, perhaps with some gas in the mix, it requires clear policy and leadership.

You can get away with small government on some issues - but not when it comes to energy. The UK needs a clear framework and strategy that sets out how we will secure our energy needs while meeting environmental goals. Right now we don't have that.

The current UK government - initially hailed by Cameron as ‘the greenest ever’ - is a liturgy of broken promises and short-term opportunism.

When it comes to energy policy and our long-term future it seems that little George has no idea. And neither has little Britain.

See also - Cameron talks up fracking and Fracking hell! from 2013.
The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information, commission enquiries or to re-publish any of his articles click here for contact information.

Blue sky thinking

Photo: Clive Simpson

 

Researchers concerned about the climate change potential of condensation trails in the sky caused by aircraft have suggested the impact could be reduced by re-routing flight paths.

Contrails - a cirrus-like cloud - are a relatively new type of high-level cloud that appear in the wake of high-altitude aircraft as water vapour from engine exhausts coalesces.

They can be up to 150km in length and last up to 24 hours, forming when planes fly through very cold and moist air causing engine exhausts condense into a visible vapour.

Founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society Gavin Pretor-Pinney writes in The Cloudspotter’s Guide that we may be surprised to learn that contrails are even classified as clouds.

But clouds they are - and the only difference between them and what nature produces is that contrails are definitely man-made.

Contrails reflect sunlight back into space and so have a cooling effect - but they also trap infrared energy in the atmosphere, which adds to global warming.

Scientists at the University of Reading in the UK have been looking at how the warming impact - which is more significant overall than the cooling - could be reduced by altering the flight paths of long and short haul aircraft.

Previous work has suggested that planes could fly at lower altitudes to limit the trails but this would burn significantly more fuel and adding to CO2 emissions overall.

The Reading study attempted to see if the benefits of curbing contrails would outweigh the extra fuel burned if flights were re-routed whilst at the optimum flying altitude.

They suggest that avoiding the creation of a major contrail on a flight between New York and London would only add 22km to the journey but could curb the flight’s warming impact.

"You think that you have to do some really huge distance to avoid these contrails," said Dr Emma Irvine, the study’s lead author.

"But because of the way the Earth curves you can actually have quite small extra distances added onto the flight to avoid some really large contrails."

The researchers found that short haul aircraft are more fuel efficient and can add up to 10 times the length of the contrail to their journeys and still reduce overall warming potential.

So, if a flight from the UK to Spain is predicted to create a 20km long contrail, as long as the plane flew less than 200km extra to avoid it, the overall warming impact would be reduced.

But for large planes on longer routes over oceans and unpopulated areas - which offer more flexibility to minimally alter flight paths - this reduces to three times the contrail length.

"The key things you need to know are the temperature of the air and how moist it is, these are things we forecast at the moment, so the information is already in there," said Dr Irvine.

On average, 7% of the total distance flown by aircraft is in the type of air where long lasting contrails form but none of the calculations on the impact of aviation on global warming currently include them.

The carbon restrictions being introduced from 2017 for long haul flights originating or arriving in the EU will not include this significant source of warming from aviation.

"The mitigation targets currently adopted by governments all around the world do not yet address the important non-CO2 climate impacts of aviation," said Dr Irvine.

"Contrails may cause a climate impact as large, or even larger, than the climate impact of aviation CO2 emissions.

"We believe it is important for scientists to assess the overall impact of aviation and the robustness of any proposed mitigation measures in order to inform policy decisions. Our work is one step along this road."

Four years ago when flights across Europe were grounded - due to the dust cloud created during the eruption of an Icelandic volcano - our skies and sunsets could be viewed without visible signs of human intrusion.

Contrails and their delicate linear patterns often add a seemingly innocent beauty to the skies above but Pretor-Pinney is not so sympathetic and describes them as "the bastard sons" of the cloud family.

"They may cut dashing figures across the rosaceous autumn evening but these icy swathes of progress must be the writing on the sky for cloudspotters and everyone else besides," he says.


The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information, commission
enquiries or to re-publish any of his articles click here for contact information

New North Sea harvest

Just as the UK's gas and oil bonanza is drawing to a close it seems that the often maligned North Sea off the east coast of Britain is about to deliver again.

This time the harvest will be in the shape of electricity from the gusty winds that ply relentlessly across the busy stretch of water.

The government announced today the go-ahead for one of the world's largest offshore wind farms that is set to be built off the coast of East Anglia.

‘East Anglia One’ will cover an area of 300 square kilometres in the southern North Sea and support almost 2,900 jobs and is expected to generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 820,000 homes.

It could also pump over £520 million into the region’s economy and today’s announcement is an important milestone for the 50/50 joint venture between ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall,.

Construction is expected to start in 2017 with offshore installation commencing the following year and generation starting in 2019.

Initial plans were to install up to 325 offshore turbines in a zone some 43 km off the coast but the use of larger turbines means that only around 240 will likely be needed to deliver the same 1.2GW of capacity.

UK energy secretary Ed Davey said: “East Anglia and the rest of the UK have a lot to gain from this development. The project has the potential to inject millions of pounds into the local and national economies, and support thousands of ‘green’ jobs.

“Making the most of Britain’s home grown energy is crucial in creating job and business opportunities, getting the best deal for customers and reducing our reliance on foreign imports.”

RenewableUK’s chief executive Maria McCaffery described it as “a huge confidence boost” for the UK’s entire offshore wind sector.

“Our world-beating offshore wind industry is set to more than treble in size by the end of the decade – projects like this will help us to maintain our global lead,” he said.

“This marks the start of what is set to be one of the world’s major green energy infrastructure developments. It is the first of six projects within the same zone with a combined capacity of up to 7.2 gigawatts, enough to power more than 4.6 million British homes.

The government announcement stressed that the new wind farm would be ‘significantly larger’ than the the London Array, currently the biggest wind farm in the world.

ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall will now accelerate supply chain contracts and start detailed negotiations to determine which ports could best support the project.

Geographically, the North Sea - most of which has an average depth of around 94m - is on the European continental shelf and, strictly speaking, is part of the Atlantic ocean.

It lies between Norway and Denmark in the east, Scotland and England in the west, and Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the south.

Drilling for oil - in fields mostly owned by the UK and Norway - began in the 1960s and led to still on-going arguments between England and Scotland about how revenue from the oil should be spent.

In contrast to oil and gas, wind power is both sustainable and clean in terms of emissions and is now recognised as one of the world's fastest growing energy sources,.

Harnessing its power to make electricity won’t solve the world’s climate change problems but developments like East Anglia One are definite steps in the right direction.


The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information, commission
enquiries or to re-publish any of his articles click here for contact information

Countdown to El Nino

Photo: Clive Simpson

 

Meteorologists and climate scientists say the world is likely to enter another El Niño weather event by this autumn upsetting 'normal' weather and driving up global temperatures further.

El Niño’s most notable characteristic is the presence of extra-warm surface water in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific ocean which tends to lead to greater average global temperatures.

Climate scientists saw a chance for 2014 to be a record temperature year even before news about the likely development of El Niño conditions - simply because temperatures continue to tick upwards.

“I would have predicted a likely top five if asked at the beginning of this year and the incipient/potential El Niño strengthens that,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, one of the leading agencies that tracks global temperatures and ranks them by year.

“We saw record global temperatures in 1998, 2005 and again in 2010 when ongoing global warming was positively reinforced by El Niño events,” he added.

“There is a good chance we will see a global temperature record this year or next if a substantial El Niño event takes hold.”

Data from ocean observing satellites and other ocean sensors indicate that El Niño conditions appear to be developing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

Conditions in May 2014 bear some similarities to those of May 1997, a year that brought one of the most potent El Niño events of the 20th century.


The maps above show the ten day average of sea surface height centred on 2 May 1997 (left), and 3 May 2014. Darker shades indicate where the water is warmer and above normal sea level. Shades of blue-green show where sea level and temperatures are lower than average. Normal sea-level conditions appear in white. The 1997 map is from data collected by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, while the 2014 data is from the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 satellite.

During an El Niño, easterly trade winds in the Pacific falter and allow giant waves of warm water - known as Kelvin waves - to drift across from the western Pacific toward South America.

Surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific become significantly warmer than normal, altering weather patterns and affecting fisheries along the west coasts of the Americas. El Niño can also have a significant influence on weather and climate far from the tropics.

Sea surface height is a good indicator of the amount of heat stored in the water. As the ocean warms, the surface rises; as it cools, its falls. This is due to thermal expansion and contraction; the molecules in warmer water are farther apart than in cooler water.

Above-normal sea surface heights in the equatorial Pacific indicate El Niño conditions, while below-normal heights indicate La Niña.

“What we are now seeing in the tropical Pacific Ocean looks similar to conditions in early 1997,” said Eric Lindstrom, oceanography programme manager at NASA.

“If this continues, we could be looking at a major El Niño this autumn. But there are no guarantees.”

Observations from a network of sensors within the Pacific Ocean support the satellite view, showing a deep pool of warm water that has been sliding eastward since January.

The years 1997/98 brought El Niño out of the scientific literature and onto the front pages and evening newscasts. It was one of the strongest El Niño events observed, with extreme weather impacts on several continents.

North America had one of its warmest and wettest winters on record, particularly in California and Florida. Peru, Mexico, and the rest of Central and South America endured devastating rainstorms and flooding. Indonesia and parts of Asia saw disastrous droughts.

Scientists at the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service (NWS) announced in early May that they foresee a 65 percent chance of a transition to El Niño in the summer of 2014.

"There remains uncertainty as to exactly when El Niño will develop and an even greater uncertainty as to how strong it may become," NWS reported.

All this might just be bad news for climate change skeptics. We've all heard by now the claim that global warming has ‘stopped’ or is ‘slowing down’ but this assertion often takes the very warm year of 1998 as the starting point.

By deliberately beginning with a hot year it can be made to look as though global temperatures aren't rising so fast.

Global temperature anomalies from 1950-2013 from World Meteorological Organisation, with years beginning with El Niño conditions in red and years beginning with La Niña conditions in blue.

You could think of annual global temperature variations as like waves on a rising tide. The rising tide is global warming and the waves are the shorter-term natural fluctuations related to phenomena like El Niño (or its flip-side La Niña), which warm (or cool) the globe by fractions of a degree.

The reality is that, as the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) notes, each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one - culminating with 2001-2010 as the warmest decade on record.

Every time the world sets another temperature record, the global warming ‘slow down’ message becomes less compelling and as we enter another El Niño the climate change skeptics may finally be running low on options.

Either they finally accept the overwhelming body of evidence that global warming is real or they can come up with a new cherry-picked counter argument. Have a guess which one they'll choose - for now, at least?

The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information, commission
enquiries or to re-publish any of his articles click here for contact information

Turning up the heat

One day in the future the Wash will extend inland as far as the cities of Peterborough and Cambridge. That means much of the Fens - including the market town of Spalding where the Lighthouse Keeper currently resides - will be under water.

And, if as expected, sea levels rise significantly the story will be repeated throughout the country - not to mention key cities and settlements around the world.

On the English south coast, the naval bases of Portsmouth and Plymouth will largely disappear. Further north, Hull will be lost, as will much of south Yorkshire.

Middlesbrough would succumb to the waves and, in the northwest, Chester would be flooded. In the east, rising sea levels will eventually claim Felixstowe, Southend and Great Yarmouth.

Around London, the Thames estuary would probably expand to three or four times its current breadth, eliminating most of Dagenham, Stratford and Ilford in the process.

And, unless huge flood defences that dwarf the current barriers are created, the whole of central London would become very seriously water-logged.

But we have to be honest. Despite the mounting evidence are we capable of mitigating such an impending disaster?

Part of the problem is that the world’s own climate disaster movie will be years in the making and is set for release only on an indeterminable date in the future - a distant event horizon.

The worst effects of climate change and global warming for most of us may be perhaps still some 50, 100 or 150 years hence.

But what we don’t know is whether this estimated timescale is fixed. Or will significant trigger points - like the melting of polar ice - have an exponential and accelerating effect?

If the recent European elections are anything to go by climate change, energy policy and the environment will likely disappear into the murky background of science denial and fear in Europe of far-right politicians before the UK’s national elections next spring.

Earlier this year, amid growing warnings about a potential link between global warming and extreme UK weather, Ed Davey, the energy secretary, raised concerns that political consensus about the need to tackle climate change was in danger of breaking down.

He said that the actions of climate deniers - and those in the Conservative and UKIP parties who try to discredit the science - is "undermining public trust in the scientific evidence for climate change".

Criticising those who seize on "any anomaly in the climate data to attempt to discredit the whole", Mr Davey added that "we can see around us today the possible consequences of a world in which extreme weather events are much more likely".

A joint report this spring from the UK Met Office and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, entitled ‘The Recent Storms and Floods in the UK’, points out that the 12cm rise in sea level over the 20th century has already exacerbated coastal flooding.

It goes on to say that a further rise of between 11cm and 16cm is expected by 2030, two-thirds of which is attributable to the effects of climate change.

Last month scientists at a NASA conference announced they had collected enough observations to conclude that the retreat of ice in the Amundsen sea sector of West Antarctica was unstoppable.

Its disappearance will likely trigger the future collapse of the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet - which brings with it a global sea level rise of between three and five metres.

Eventually, rising sea levels will displace millions of people worldwide and one headline in a US magazine reporting the NASA conference ran the headline - ‘This Is What a Holy Shit Moment for Global Warming Looks Like’.

For those who have seen the recent film ‘Noah’ starring Russell Crowe, based on the story of a Biblical flood, there might be parallels to be drawn.

"For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away."                           Matthew 24:38-39

Like the people of Noah’s time, we remain wilfully oblivious to the looming human ecological catastrophe.

Are we prepared to accept huge changes in living standards merely to limit - rather than halt - the rise in temperatures and ensuing problems?

And where capitalism rules, can anyone persuade our politicians to put the future ahead of the present, apart from in a sound bite?

Sometimes the task ahead feels as hopeless as arguing against growing old. This is, indeed, a ‘holy shit’ moment for the world and it seems like something of a miracle is needed.


The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information, commission
enquiries or to re-publish any of his articles click here for contact information

Nine million bicycles

Photo: Clive Simpson

 

The first time I stepped onto the pavements of Beijing, the feted capital of the People's Republic of China, it felt more like nine million cars than nine million bicycles.

With over 20 million people, it is one of the most populous and ancient cities in the world, renowned for opulent palaces, temples, gardens, tombs, walls and fancy gates, as well as art treasures and universities.

It is headquarters to most of China's largest state-owned companies and a major hub for the national highway, expressway, railway and high-speed rail networks. Beijing's international airport is the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic.

For my week-long visit in October 2013 this enormous and spectacular city was also host to a number of major conferences, including the 64th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) which I was reporting on for one of the host organisations, the International Astronautical Federation (IAF).

Beijing is certainly enormous and spectacular. In the northern quarter lie a cluster of westernised hotels, a stone's throw from the sprawling China National Conference Centre (CNCC) and the Olympic park with it's Bird's nest stadium and Cube' swimming pool.

Further south is the ancient city centre and the historic Forbidden City, while to the North, the historic Summer Palace and the Great Wall.

But it is air pollution that piques my interest today - not only the appalling and choking smogs that descend ever more frequently on this city but now disturbingly close to home (Paris) and, very much closer to home, (London). What are we to make of this?

Smog has long been a problem in Beijing. Whilst perhaps better than it was in the past now that much of the city's heavy industry has been relocated, it remains a problem. In fact, most of the smog is now caused by vehicle traffic.

During my stay the smog and pollution were so bad on at least two days that the effects - stinging eyes and uncomfortable breathing - were noticeable after only a few minutes in the open.

The notion that this was a thing restricted to far off countries, or certainly something of the past in the UK, has certainly been dispelled this spring.

In March recorded levels of pollution in Paris were higher than in many of the world's most notoriously polluted cities, including Beijing.

Calm and warm spring days left a chemical soup hanging above the City of Light, choking the famous boulevards and leading the French government to implement an alternating driving ban and offer free public transport for a time.

For the past few days I too have been living in smog land (otherwise known as East Anglia) as record levels of air pollution plagued many parts of the UK.

Domestic pollution (largely nitrogen dioxide originating in traffic fumes) and emissions from continental Europe, combined with dust from the Sahara and low south-easterly winds, caused air quality and visibility to plummet.

The smog-like conditions of this week have shown that the UK is far from immune.

Even before this latest episode the country faces fines of up to £300m a year after the European commission launched legal proceedings against the government for failing to reduce ‘excessive’ levels of nitrogen dioxide despite 15 years of warnings.

Other European countries have also failed to meet the air quality directive that should have been adopted in 2008 but the EU environment commissioner, Janez Potocnik, has singled Britain out for its 'persistent breaches'.

According to the commission, air pollution limits are regularly exceeded in 16 zones across the UK - Greater London, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Teesside, the Potteries, Hull, Southampton, Glasgow, the east, the south-east, the east Midlands, Merseyside, Yorkshire & Humberside, the west Midlands, and the north-east.

Air pollution itself is currently attributed to 29,000 premature deaths a year in the UK and the World Health Organisation has confirmed that it can also cause cancer.

Like climate change - and there would appear to be a natural connection - this is a global problem and one that won’t be blown away by any amount of political hot air. Real action is called for.

The blog title is taken from ‘Nine Million Bicycles’,a song written and produced by Mike Batt for the singer Katie Melua's second album, ‘Piece by Piece’. It was released as the album's first single in September 2005 and reached number five in the UK Singles Chart. According to Melua, the inspiration for the song came during a visit to Beijing with Batt after their interpreter showed them around the city and stated there were supposedly nine million bicycles in the city. The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information or to get in touch click here

Always look on the bright side

The headlines this week have all been about how Britain will keep the lights on in the midst of the government’s failure on long term energy policy and blatant profiteering by the country’s big six energy suppliers.

But this evening an estimated 10 million people in Britain will turn their lights off voluntarily as part of Earth Hour, a symbolic gesture to show support for environmental issues.

Now in its eighth year, the mass participation world-wide event comes as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prepares to launch its latest report in Japan on Monday, outlining how climate change will affect wildlife, food supplies, water and the weather.

"It's fortuitous timing that as millions of people around the world take part in WWF's Earth Hour, the world's leading scientists release the latest IPCC report, which highlights the various impacts of climate change," said Colin Butfield, director of public engagement and campaigns at WWF-UK.

"The significance of these two events is massive. Climate change is the biggest environmental threat facing our planet – it's real, it's happening right now, and we need to act fast."

Among the world's famous landmarks that will dim their lights are the Empire State building in New York, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow, the Bosphorus Bridge in Turkey and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai

In the UK, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge and the London Eye will all dim their lights, with an estimated 10 million Britons expected to take part.

Launched in Australia in 2007, WWF says Earth Hour has now grown to become the world's biggest environmental event, mobilising people around a range of issues from deforestation to energy efficiency. Last year saw more than 7,000 towns and cities in 154 countries take part.

A survey commissioned by WWF-UK this week found that almost half (47%) of respondents said they would be willing to switch their political allegiance to a different party based on the strength of environmental policies, with 73% saying the leaders of the UK's main political parties are not currently giving enough emphasis to the environment.


Tonight from 08.25 pm the WWF website will be live-streaming highlights of Earth Hour, from the spectacular London and global landmark switch offs to a special performance from Sophie Ellis Bextor - http://earthhour.wwf.org.uk/tune-in-to-our-livestream-this-Saturday

For further illuminating reading see - The end of night and Fear of the dark