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

Tractors on the beach

The seaside town of Cromer lies on the UK’s east coast. Perched on the edge of crumbling north Norfolk cliffs, it is famous for tasty crabs, wide open beaches and a traditional Victorian pier complete with theatre and a seaside special variety show.

Its unique geographical location jutting out into the North Sea means that on a blue sky summer’s day you can watch both sunrise and sunset over the ocean.

This does imply, of course, that you are diligent enough to rise exceptionally early and still be wakeful enough at the other end of the day to repose on the pier, perhaps with beer in hand.

There is no quay-side or harbour at Cromer so the fishing boats are gathered on the shingle beach against the sea wall, each with its own tractor and boat trailer.

At the end of the 19th century, the beaches to the east and west of the pier were crowded with fishing boats. Now, you will see only a dozen boats which ply their trade from the east beach.

Crabs - dressed or undressed according to your state of desire - can be bought direct from local fishermen, or enjoyed at local restaurants in salads, tarts and sandwiches.

Today, it is not the crabs themselves that grab our interest but the rusty, salt-laden army of ancient and colourful tractors that line the beach head.

They are adorned and customised with all manner of fixtures and fittings - from plastic deckchairs as replacement seats to makeshift gear sticks and lashed on tarpaulins to keep the worst of the elements out of the workings.

Most look so rusted through with salt it seems a miracle their sand-blasted engines would ever start.

But somehow they defy mechanical odds and, with crabbing boats in tow, continue to chug across the shingle beach to the water’s edge and back.

The photos below are a selection from the Lighthouse Keeper's visit to Cromer on a sunny and warm afternoon a few days ago. All were taken with a Nikon D70 SLR camera.

All photos by Clive Simpson

LED lighting's dark side

New LED street lighting being installed by councils throughout the country to save money and cut carbon emissions could mean more sleepless nights and ultimately be bad for our health.

A study by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) says some eco-friendly low-energy LED (light emitting diode) street lighting creates unnecessary glare and might have serious effects on people’s well-being.

Light pollution expert Martin Morgan-Taylor has called for more research into which wavelengths, levels and durations of lighting pose health threats - and how this compares with modern lighting practices.

The lecturer - from Leicester’s De Montfort University - says medical research is increasingly linking LED lighting with more serious health issues such as cancer and depression.

"Artificial lighting is known to have negative effects on human health and well-being if sleep is disrupted by bright light shining into bedroom windows," he said.

"What we know is that ‘white’ or ‘blue-rich’ lighting - which mimics natural daylight - is being increasingly used at night.

"This type of light suppresses the production of a circadian rhythm hormone called melatonin, which is believed to be a powerful anti-oxidant that helps to ward off some cancers," he said.

The CPRE report, ‘Shedding Light – a survey of local authority approaches to lighting in England’ is the first piece of research to ask councils how they control light pollution.

Councils are urged to give ‘careful consideration’ to the type of LED lighting they use and weigh the potential impacts that higher temperature blue-rich lighting has on ecology and human health.

The report says authorities across England could be doing more to reduce the impact of light pollution and be saving hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in the process by using dimming schemes.

It also urges councils to preserve dark skies by having a ‘presumption against’ new lighting in existing dark areas and preventing ‘inappropriate and badly designed development’ that masks views of the night sky.

But according to the survey of 83 local authorities fewer than two thirds of councils in England are actively seeking to minimise the impact of bad lighting - despite recent changes to planning laws which encourage them to do so.

The CPRE also recommends new street lighting should be tested ‘in situ’ before schemes are rolled out across wider areas to ensure that it is the minimum required for the task and does not cause a nuisance to residents.

Street lighting in England costs councils around £616m a year and can account for up to 30% of their carbon emissions.

The CPRE study reveals that despite the number of people living with severe light pollution around the country growing more than a third of councils have no formal policy in place.

Almost half of councils responding said they were involved in dimming street lights in their areas and a third say they are now switching off street lights - typically between midnight and 5am.

The research found dimming schemes are significantly more popular with residents than switch off schemes - with 68 per cent of respondents saying local communities had been very supportive.

Some council schemes to replace old-style sodium ‘orange’ street lighting with new LED lamps have attracted criticism from nearby residents.

Last month people in a west London borough complained that new LED street lamps were so bright they were no longer getting a good night's sleep.

Hounslow council started using the lights as part of a multi-million pound improvement scheme but people living close to the new LED lighting described it is ‘like living on a floodlit soccer pitch’.

Elsewhere, Leicester city council is updating 32,000 of its 37,000 street lights as part of a commitment to reduce the council's carbon footprint by 50% before 2025.

The three year £13.9m project began in March 2013 and will contribute an estimated saving of 5,350 tonnes of carbon emissions per annum.

It includes a Central Management System (CMS) for remote control of lighting levels in specific areas, allowing dimmed lighting, for example, in the early hours before dawn.

The council says replacing its existing stock with LED lighting will reduce energy usage and carbon emissions by over 40% compared with current levels, saving electricity charges (at 2013 prices) of £0.84m a year.

Using a CMS should provide a further 17% reduction, increasing the overall savings to 57% of current energy usage and carbon emissions, and slashing a total of £1.2m off its annual electricity bill.


Aerial view of Leicester city centre at night clearly showing the streets
where new white LED lighting has already been installed.

Other councils are, however, taking a more cautious route. In Essex, the streets have been equipped with one of the world’s largest wireless street lighting control systems.

Around 125,000 of the county’s street lights have been wirelessly linked, allowing centralised control and fault detection.

The council expects to reduce the energy cost of street lighting by around £1.3 million per year and to cut annual carbon emissions by over 8,000 tons.

Earlier this year Trafford council in Manchester delayed its £9.3m scheme to replace all its 27,000 street lights after a resident threatened High Court action.

Simon Nicholas, a chartered engineer and businessman, raised concerns that new LED lighting had the potential to cause health problems.

"We're breaking new ground here and new evidence is emerging all the time," he said. "The council has not fully taken these studies into account."

Mr Nicholas claimed some councils are not looking at the bigger picture ."LEDs are currently on an exponential curve in terms of development," he said.

"In five years’ time we may well have really good LED street lights. Anyone charging in now is making a huge mistake."

Emma Marrington, CPRE Dark Skies campaigner and author of the ‘Shedding Light’ report, said: "Many local authorities are taking steps in the right direction but much more can be done.

"We urge councils to do more to control lighting in their areas and ensure that the right lighting is used only where and when it is needed."

She said the research had revealed no evidence to support the fear that adjusting or dimming street lights impacted on public safety.

"We're not advocating changes where they're not appropriate - but why shine bright lights on residential streets, quiet roads and open countryside throughout the night when it's not needed?

"Genuine dark starry nights are becoming harder and harder to find which is why councils should take action to control it now. Light pollution blurs the distinction between town and country, ruins the countryside's tranquil character and denies us the experience of a truly starry sky."

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

You are what you sleep

Margaret Thatcher was once famous for promoting the adage that she could thrive and work effectively on only a few hours sleep per night.

And, though there are exceptions to every rule, for the large majority of us it is not the same - we ignore sleep at our peril.

A report today for the BBC's ‘Day of the Body Clock’ asserts that society has become ‘supremely arrogant’ in ignoring the importance of sleep.

Leading researchers from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Manchester and Surrey universities have warned that cutting back on sleep is leading to serious health problems.

Scientists have warned that our modern life and 24 hour society mean many people are now ‘living against’ their body clocks with damaging consequences for health and well-being.

We all know that lack of regular sleep can affect our mood, vitality and energy levels. But cancer, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, infections and obesity have also all been linked to reduced sleep.

Prof Russell Foster, from the University of Oxford, told the BBC that people are now getting on average between one and two hours less sleep a night than 60 years ago.

"We are the supremely arrogant species because we feel we can ignore the fact that we have evolved under a light-dark cycle,” he said.

“What we do as a species, perhaps uniquely, is override the clock. And long-term acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems.”

Regular readers of ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’ will know that the natural rhythms of life, and of light and darkness, have been discussed at frequent intervals.

Harvard University’s Prof Charles Czeisler confirmed that light is the “most  powerful synchroniser” of our internal biological clocks.

He said energy efficient light bulbs as well as TVs, smart phones, tablets and computers had high levels of light in the blue end of the spectrum, which is "right in the sweet spot" for disrupting the body clock.

“Light exposure, especially short wavelength blue-ish light in the evening, will reset our circadian rhythms to a later hour, postponing the release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin and making it more difficult for us to get up in the morning.

“It’s a big concern that we're being exposed to much more light, sleeping less and, as a consequence, may suffer from many chronic diseases.”

In ‘Blinded by the night’ I noted that an increasing number of scientific studies were questioning the long-held premise that humans are largely immune to the effects of artificial light at night.

Today, or to be correct, tonight, we have levels of light hundreds and thousands of time higher than the natural level during the night – and light pollution is currently rising by a general average of 20 percent a year.

What is happening in the streets outside our homes is not always within our control. But we can take more personal responsibility when it comes to the light behind closed doors.

In his book ‘A Great Day at the Office’, Dr John Briffa discusses sleep as one of the strategies to help maximise our energy and performance levels.

“Light exposure in the day promotes better sleep but it may have the reserve effect late in the evening,” he says.

“In one study, light exposure from room lighting was found to delay meltonin exposure by about 90 minutes. Turning room lighting down, or perhaps off altogether (and using dimly lit lamps) during the evening may help sleep.”

I covered the topic of how excessive light at night affect our sleep and health more extensively in ‘Early morning birdsong’.

If you don’t sleep too well at night then it is probably a good idea, according to Dr Briffa, to be mindful of the potential impact of evening light levels on sleep.

TVs, laptops, tablets and smart phones - with their blue-rich light - can all suppress melatonin function too so avoiding the use of these within a couple of hours of bedtime may be a helpful - though impossibly hard - tactic to implement.


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