I’m just back from a short holiday in Cumbria: great fun sharing a hostel with a group of eighteen friends. We did quite a bit of walking despite the rain and flooding. In Keswick the locals seemed to be making heroic efforts to clear up after the floods. Weather records are being broken faster than ever, locally and globally. Storms Desmond, Eva and Frank have swept through Britain over the last month. 13.44 inches of rain fell at Honister Pass in Cumbria in a 24 hour period from 6.30 pm on 4th December to 6.30 pm on 5th December, a new national record. I doubt it’ll be a record that lasts that long.
The sea and the air are warming due to climate change, and warmer air carries more moisture. Of course blaming any individual weather event on climate change is difficult, but patterns of individual events show trends that fit with climate predictions. These last few weeks have seen lots of extreme weather events in many countries. As atmospheric carbon levels increase the greenhouse effect means temperatures are rising both in the oceans and on land. Weather systems are becoming more energised, more dynamic and less predictable.
The only way to halt the process is to stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere and start sequestering it back out of the atmosphere and safely locking it into soils, forests and using it for a range of new products like carbon negative cements. In the wake of the Paris conference we need strong political action to reduce emissions. On this blog throughout 2016 I’ll continue to highlight some of the best ideas, technologies, projects and developments that show that a low carbon economy is possible and could bring multiple benefits apart from just saving us from the worst ravages of a changing climate.
Recent press coverage of weather & climate http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-weather-why-the-recent-devastating-floods-will-become-the-new-normal-a6793291.html