Daytime temperature	England and Wales 16.3ºC 3.2 ºC above average Northern Ireland 14.3ºC 2.3 ºC above average Scotland 13.3ºC 2.8 ºC above average
Rainfall	England and Wales 76mm, 97% of average Northern Ireland 133 mm, 133% of average Scotland 148, 103% of average
Sunshine	England and Wales 121% of average Northern Ireland 108% of average Scotland 116% of average
Warmest	Gravesend, Kent 22.9ºC

This September was the warmest on record.

And the long-term future for the earth …

At the rate we are burning fossil fuels, global temperatures could easily increase by more than the 3ºC rise. Such a rise could increase flooding, forest fires and droughts. A 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said an increase of between 1.4 and 5.8ºC by 2100 would be caused if current carbon emissions continue.

Global sea levels would rise by between 0.09 and 0.88 metres as a result. A 3ºC rise or above would reduce rain on the south coast to half of current levels, by more than 40% across the rest of England and 30% in Scotland. Sea levels could be 70cm higher in the south and there would be a 17-fold increase in flooding on the east coast. London could face a £25bn clean-up bill after a storm surge that would overwhelm the Thames barrier.
More than half of the world's major forests will be lost if global temperatures rise by an average of 3ºC or more by the end of the century.
Extreme floods, forest fires and droughts will also become more common over the next 200 years as global temperatures rise owing to climate change. A comprehensive study of 52 simulations of the world's climate over the next century, based on 16 different climate models, gives varying scenarios for the world’s climate and vegetation. The report is one of the most accurate scientific projection yet of the future effects of global warming.

According to the report, the effects of a 2ºC category were inevitable. This scenario predicts that Europe, Asia, Canada, Central America and Amazonia could lose up to 30% of its forests.
A rise of 2-3ºC will mean less fresh water available in parts of West Africa, Central America, southern Europe and the eastern US, raising the probability of drought in these areas. In contrast, the tropical parts of Africa and South America will be at greater risk of flooding as trees are lost. A global temperature rise of more than 3ºC will mean even less fresh water. Loss of forest in Amazonia and Europe, Asia, Canada and Central America could reach 60%.

A 3ºC warming could also present a yet more dangerous scenario where the temperatures induce plants to become net producers of carbon dioxide. This so-called ‘tipping point’ could arrive by the middle of this century. A 3ºC rise in average temperatures would cause a worldwide drop in cereal crops of between 20m and 400m tonnes, put 400 million more people at risk of hunger, and put up to 3 billion people at risk of flooding and without access to fresh water supplies.

Global warming – the real extent?

The leading climate change research body has revised upwards by 50% the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that need to be achieved by 2050. The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research says this is necessary because successive governments have failed to include aviation or shipping emissions in their calculations. When aviation and shipping is factored in, UK carbon emissions have not fallen at all since 1990.

The Tyndall Centre proposes radical ideas to effect change, predicting that most buildings will have to generate their own electricity, double-decker trains will transport people to work, and planes might not be allowed to take off unless they are nearly full.
Nevertheless, 90% cuts are achievable if measures are taken within four years to stabilise emissions. Beyond 2010, it says, annual cuts of 9% will be needed for the next 20 years.

Railways
By 2030, railways could be entering their greatest era. Trains are expected to remain the most carbon efficient mode of transport after cycling and walking.

Industry
If Britain is to meet a 90% cut in emissions, the government must slow energy consumption and shift the economy towards renewables. The biggest emission savings will come from capturing and storing carbon emissions from coal and gas, and the generation of wave, wind and tidal energy. By 2030, the authors expect wood and fuel crops to be heating public buildings and housing estates, and up to 36% of all electricity to come from renewables, compared with less than 5% today and 10% in 2010. A further 15% will come from ‘on site’ micro-generation by buildings and appliances.

Roads
The biggest emission savings will come from the shift from oil to alternative fuels, and as cities effectively ban private transport from their centres. The government could increase road tax on inefficient vehicles, decrease the speed limit on motorways to 60mph, set minimum emission standards for company car fleets and encourage public transport.

Buildings
The authors expect roughly 2m new buildings in the next 45 years. If high construction standards are introduced they need add little or nothing to overall CO2 emissions. By 2030, the majority of homes would have highly efficient insulation and roofs, and would have begun to generate their own electricity from wind turbines and solar panels.

Aviation
The Tyndall authors expect biofuels increasingly to be grown for aviation over the next 25 years and suggest that the government could increase the tax on flying.

Global warming and the fate of Spanish beaches

Spain's beaches are expected to shrink by an average of 15 metres (50ft) by 2050 as global warming causes sea levels to creep up while stronger waves and currents eat away at the coastline.
La Manga is a coastal area in the south-eastern region of Murcia popular with British holiday-home buyers. According to Raul Medina, coordinator of a Spanish Environment Ministry report, buying holiday property there is a bad investment.

Global warming is melting the icecaps and raising sea levels around Spain by 2.5mm a year. By 2050 that will mean a 12cm-15cm rise, with northern Spain's Atlantic coast suffering most. The Mediterranean coast will lose an average of around 10 metres of beach by 2050. Hotel owners in the southern Costa del Sol have already asked for permission to bring in their own sand as beaches begin to shrink. The report also recommends that sea walls be raised in some Spanish ports.

It also warns that some of Europe's most important wetland sites will be hit. The Albufera of Valencia and the delta of the River Ebro as well as the Dóana national park in south-west Spain - one of Europe's biggest nature reserves - will all suffer the consequences of rising water levels and higher salinity.

Increasingly powerful hurricanes

Hurricane breeding grounds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are being warmed by greenhouse gases. Climate researchers found that emissions from burning fossil fuels and other industrial activities were to blame for driving temperatures upwards in tropical waters where hurricanes form. They predict warmer ocean waters will energise hurricanes and make them more powerful.

Scientists used over 20 climate models to investigate the possible causes of a rise in sea surface temperatures of up to 0.67ºC in the Atlantic and Pacific tropics from 1906 to 2005. They found that tiny particulates from volcanos and sulphates from industrial plants blocked the sun, and so cooled the oceans. But the effect was swamped by the rise in greenhouse gases, which led to warmer oceans.
Hurricanes form in tropical waters when evaporating water is sucked up into storms. As the vapour rises, it condenses, releasing energy that fuels the storm. The warmer the ocean surface, the more energy is pumped into the hurricane.

Although the rise in ocean temperatures is slight, it is expected to have a dramatic effect on the intensity of hurricanes. While sea temperatures increased by only about half a degree during the past 30 years, the power of hurricanes doubled.

Warm water fish off Britain

More and more warm water fish, whales, crustaceans and other marine species are heading north, following the plankton and fish on which they feed. These include sardines, anchovies, barracudas, basking sharks and seahorses have been recorded. Great white sharks have also been reported.
Fish that were found in southern Britain are now in Wales or Scotland. Others which used to only visit are now breeding in Cornish and Devonian waters.

The sightings are entirely expected. There is more heat going into the marine system, so there is more energy and all the seas are changing [as they warm]. Britain is on the borderline between cold and warm species of plankton and the line has shifted north in the last 40 years.

Some say changes may be cyclical. The arrival of exotic species has happened before. The French used to catch tuna off Cornwall between the wars. But University of East Anglia scientists say that 21 species have shifted their distributions in line with the rise in sea temperature, and 18 species had moved much further north. The North Sea cod population has moved 73 miles towards the Arctic while haddock have moved 65 miles north.

Britain to be more attractive for tourists

As the climate heats up, fewer Britons will fly south to the Mediterranean and beyond. Instead the south coasts of England, Wales and Ireland will see an influx of tourists put off by the Med's searing temperatures.
Tourism demand will shift northwards and to higher altitude destinations. Germans are the most travelled nation with 72m international tourists and the UK is third with 53m. Both are rich with unreliable weather and close neighbours. But as the weather heats up, more will stay at home.
The tourism losers in the next decades are set to be Greece, Italy, Spain, and the Caribbean. Tourists will flock to the Baltic coast, southern Sweden, Ireland, the Alps, Croatia and southern Britain.

Increased flood risks related to global warming

Rainfall reaching almost monsoon levels has become increasingly common in Britain over the past 40 years. Flooding risks have also risen sharply close to rivers in areas that were previously considered high enough to avoid damage. The number of deluges, prolonged rain periods and flash floods has risen particularly sharply in the north of England and Scotland. The changes are consistent with the trend expected from global warming.
If the trend continues, which is likely, there is likely to be an increase in flooding over the coming years which has major implications for flood risk management. Up to 5 million people could be at risk of flooding and face increased insurance premiums or problems getting cover.

Carbon storage in soil … lessons for the future

Far bigger cuts in greenhouse gas emissions could be needed to prevent dangerous climate change than previously thought. Changes in the soil and oceans over the coming decades could make it much more difficult for the atmosphere to cope with carbon dioxide spewed from cars, power stations and aircraft.
Warmer temperatures could force soils across the world to release their stocks of carbon, potentially driving up global temperatures by an extra 1.5ºC. This could be very important and would make the climate change problem even greater because you have to stabilise carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

About half of mankind's carbon emissions are soaked up by the land and oceans. However, experts expect this to decline as global temperatures rise. The natural buffer that currently absorbs our carbon emissions will actually turn against us and accelerate global warming, as warmer temperatures lead to increased carbon emissions.
Models suggest up to 170bn tonnes of carbon could be released from the land between 2050 and 2100, equivalent to about 30 years of fossil fuel use. This could increase average temperatures by an extra 0.5 to 1.5ºC.

Methane emissions – twice official levels

The UK's emissions of the methane are nearly double what the government says they are. A study, reported in the New Scientist, suggests that Britain's actual contribution is 92% up on what it declares under the Kyoto protocol. It also suggests that France is emitting 47% more methane than it declares and Germany had also underestimated its methane contribution by 62%. Methane emissions in the London area in the late 1990s were 40% to 80% higher than declared by the government at the time.

Climate-changing gases, excluding those from aviation and shipping, increased by 18m tonnes or 0.4% between 2003 and 2004. The UK's emissions rose by 0.2%. Although methane emissions are much lower than carbon dioxide and the gas is broken down more quickly, it has a much more powerful warming effect. Over 100 years, a tonne of methane will cause 23 times as much warming as a tonne of CO2.

Methane levels rise again

Levels of the greenhouse gas methane may rise sharply in the next few years, warming the planet faster than previously expected. The new data reveals that methane levels began to level off in the 1990s, but emissions from human activity started to climb again before the end of the decade. Since 1999, levels of methane from human activity have been rising in Asia, consistent with a surge in coal usage in China.

Wetter weather will return the wetlands to their normal state in the next three to five years, boosting the amount of methane in the atmosphere by 10m tonnes a year. Although methane levels are 200 times lower than the most widespread greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, molecule for molecule, it is 20 times more effective at retaining heat in the atmosphere.

Blair sets climate change deadline

In June Tony Blair called for a one-year deadline for a new global deal on climate change as he warned that time was running out to find a way of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. He stated that the international community could not afford to spend the five years it took to finalise the Kyoto agreement, under which some developed countries pledged action on global warming. He added that the major players - US, China, India and Europe – needed to agree a framework to stabilise temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations.

Half of global car exhaust produced by US vehicles

Americans represent 5% of the world's population but drive almost 33% of its cars, which in turn account for nearly 50% of the carbon dioxide pumped out of exhaust pipes into the atmosphere each year. US cars play a disproportionate role in global warming because they are less fuel efficient than passenger vehicles used elsewhere, emitting 15% more carbon dioxide, and because they are driven further across the USA’s wide open spaces.

Americans drive 202 million passenger vehicles out of 683 million worldwide. The average US passenger vehicle, with a fuel economy of less than 20mpg, travels 11,000 miles a year, nearly a third more than cars elsewhere. With suburban sprawl far outpacing the growth of public transport networks, Americans are commuting more each year, shopping more, and driving further to the shops each time. Between 1990 and 2001 the number of miles travelled on American shopping trips rose by 40%.

The boom in sports utility vehicles (SUVs) has peaked as a result of soaring fuel prices, but overall US fuel consumption will continue to rise in the next few years. More SUVs are sold in the US than any other type of car, overtaking small cars in 2002. They will soon be the main source of automotive CO2 emissions.

While cars account for a tenth of greenhouse gas emissions around the world, American cars are responsible for 20% of US energy-related emissions. The amount of CO2 emitted from oil used for transportation in the United States is similar to the amount from coal used to generate electricity. General Motors, the biggest US car manufacturer, is responsible for nearly a third of those emissions. Nevertheless, GM claim to be seeking to improve the energy efficiency and reduce the emissions of their fleets.

Climate change and South American glaciers

Andean glaciers are melting so fast that some are expected to disappear within 15-25 years, denying major cities water supplies and putting populations and food supplies at risk in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia.

The Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia, for example, the source of fresh water for the cities of La Paz and El Alto, is expected to completely melt within 15 years if present trends continue. Mount Huascarán, in Peru has lost around 40% of the area it covered only 30 years ago. The O'Higgins glacier in Chile has shrunk by nine miles in 100 years and Argentina's Upsala glacier is losing 14 metres (46ft) a year.

Although a few glaciers in southern Patagonia are increasing in size, almost all near the tropics are in rapid retreat. Some glaciers in Colombia are now less than 20% of the mass recorded in 1850 and Ecuador could lose half its most important glaciers within 20 years.
Climate change is accelerating the deglaciation phenomenon. In the short term, melting glaciers could cause overflows of reservoirs and trigger mudslides, and in the longer term cut water supplies.
According to the Colombian institute of hydrology, in 1983 the five major glaciers in El Cocuy national park were expected to last at least 300 years, but measurements taken last year suggest that they may all disappear within 25 years. Meanwhile, the ice sheet on the Ecuadorean volcano Cotopaxi and its glacier has shrunk by 30% since 1976.

The melt forces people to farm at higher altitudes to grow their crops, adding to deforestation, which in turn undermines water sources and leads to soil erosion.
Snow and rainfall patterns in South America and the Caribbean are becoming less predictable and more extreme. East of the Andes, rainfall has been increasing since about 1970, accompanied by more destructive, sudden deluges. Climate change models predict more rainfall in eastern South America and less in central and southern Chile with likelihood of greater and opposite extremes. Rises in sea level are expected to be especially severe in the region over the next 50 years, with 60 of Latin America's 77 largest cities located on the coast. The first hurricanes have recently hit south of the equator line in Brazil.

Climate change in California

California's 36m residents already breathe America's worst air, with 90% of them living in areas that violate the state's air-quality standards. The San Joaquin Valley sits under a cloud of pollution so thick that the surrounding mountains can barely be seen; the brown layer of air over Los Angeles, which produces spectacular sunsets, also contributes to a state-wide count of some 8,800 deaths and $71 billion in health-care costs a year.

Moreover, worse is supposedly to come. By mid-century, extreme heat events in urban centres such as Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Bernardino could cause two or three times more heat-related deaths than occur today. With less snow likely on the Sierra Nevada, there will be less water for both agriculture (a $30 billion industry employing 1m workers) and cities. By the end of the century, California's already frequent wildfires could increase by anywhere from 30% to 90%. Rising sea levels could erode beaches and lead to coastal flooding.
In 2005 California was the world's 12th-biggest producer of greenhouse gases, and the heroic aim of the new bill is to reduce these to their 1990 levels by 2020, which would mean a cut of 25% from projected levels.

Climate change and the seasons

In the world's largest study of seasonal events, such as the flowering of plants, autumnal leaf fall and insect behaviour, scientists have found that spring now arrives six to eight days earlier across Europe than in the early 1970s. Warmer temperatures have also delayed autumn, by an average of three days in the past 30 years.

In Spain, where early spring temperatures have risen by up to 1ºC a decade, spring now arrives two weeks earlier. Britain is warming at a slower rate, with temperatures creeping up 1ºC in the past three decades. Shifting seasons were already disrupting sensitive ecosystems by knocking natural processes such as pollination out of synchronisation.
One of the biggest problems is that species don't adapt to warming at the same rate. In addition, migratory birds that winter in Africa but return to Britain to breed are faring badly because they have not adapted to the earlier springs. It's as if they're turning up late for a meal.
A warmer Britain is likely to see rarer species die off as already common species expand their territories.

Climate change and amphibians

Up to 32.5% of the world’s 5,743 amphibian species are threatened. Moreover, up to 122 amphibian species have become extinct since 1980. This is the result of human encroachment on their habitat, climate change and infectious diseases.

Conservationists propose a $400m (£217m) initiative, the Amphibian Survival Alliance, to dispatch ‘rapid response’ teams to collect endangered amphibians for captive breeding.
Amphibians are considered delicate sentinels of environmental change. Sudden collapses in their populations in the 1980s and 1990s sparked research. Poor waterways protection had seen freshwater biodiversity fall by half in the past 20 years.

Transport emissions

Transport is the only sector of the economy in which carbon emissions have risen since 1990. It is also the only one in which they are expected to be above that year's level in 2020. Road traffic, producing 95% of carbon emissions from transport, is the main culprit.
Cars are steadily getting cleaner thanks to technological advances. Manufacturers reckon that new engines cut carbon emissions from new vehicles by about 1% a year. But this saving is eroded by drivers' increasing fondness for safer, heavier and more gadget-infested vehicles, which consume more petrol and so emit more carbon.
Lowering the motorway speed limit to 60 mph, for example, would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by around 18%.
In contrast, the Drax Power Station in Yorkshire, which supplies 7% of the country’s electricity to the national grid, is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK. It is part of ‘megawatt valley’, the line of power stations beside the M62 motorway.

Brussels warns carmakers

Car manufacturers were given a blunt warning from Brussels, which said companies would face stringent laws if they failed to abide by their commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Figures showed that they were on course to miss a 25% reduction in CO2 levels by 2009.

The new figures showed that CO2 emissions from new cars dropped by 12.4% between 1995 and 2004. But the industry had agreed to cut average CO2 emissions to 140g per km by 2008-09 - a fall of 25% on 1995 levels.
Japanese carmakers, such as Daihatsu, Honda and Lexus, will have to achieve annual cuts of 3.5% to meet the agreed target. European firms, such as BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo, and Korean makers, such as Daewoo and Hyundai, will have to achieve annual cuts of 3.3%.

Under the Kyoto protocol, the commission has made cuts in vehicle emissions a key part of its campaign to reduce greenhouse gases to 8% below 1990 levels by 2012. Road transport generates more than a fifth of all CO2 emissions, with cars responsible for half of these. Emissions from cars and lorries have increased by 22% since 1990.

Carbon sequestration

One way of slowing climate change would be to prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere in the first place. In the case of carbon dioxide, a widely discussed suggestion is to capture it when it is produced in power stations and large industrial plants, and store it in geological formations from which it cannot easily escape.
Oil companies have long pumped carbon dioxide into depleted fields—not for environmental reasons, but because it forces out the remaining oil. America has 80 such fields, some of which are 30 years old. But few studies have looked at what happens once the gas is in the ground. In 2004 a group of researchers from the United States' Geological Survey in California, pumped 1,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the Frio formation, a disused brine and oil reservoir east of Houston, Texas.

The team compressed the gas into its liquid form and pumped it into a layer of sandstone 24 metres thick, lying 1.5km under the surface. They have been monitoring the site ever since, and have found no leaks. However, they found that the carbon dioxide has increased the acidity of the water in the aquifer. This, in turn, has dissolved the minerals that hold the sandstone together. The rapid dissolution of carbonate and other minerals could ultimately create pathways in the rock seals or well cements for carbon dioxide and brine leakage. They therefore recommend that sequestration of carbon dioxide should be confined to deep aquifers, where overlying layers of shale would be likely to prevent leaks.

Carbon trading

The EU set up the first carbon-trading scheme in a bid to implement the Kyoto Protocol. It gives industry incentives to clean up its act as an alternative to extra taxes. The CO2 factories can emit is capped but firms can increase emissions by buying permits from elsewhere in the world. Critics do not like the way firms can buy their way out of making tough cuts in pollution levels. The biggest polluter, the US, has not signed up to Kyoto while China has been allowed to avoid carbon limits.

Oil refinery gives greenhouses a boost with CO2 pipeline

A project to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from oil refineries by using the gas as ‘fertiliser’ in commercial greenhouses has been so successful it is being extended.
The project, which adds new meaning to the term ‘greenhouse gas’, is the first in the world. CO2 from Shell's Pernis refinery outside Rotterdam is distributed to 400 greenhouses, saving a large amount of natural gas each year, which is equivalent to 170,000 tonnes of CO2.

The companies behind the venture, Hoek Loos and Voker Wessels are now expanding the operation to supply a further 100 greenhouses. Before the project was launched the greenhouses, which grow vegetables and flowers, used to generate CO2 by burning natural gas. By tripling the concentration of the gas inside the greenhouse they allow the plants to photosynthesise more quickly. This boosts productivity by up to 25% and cuts growing time, but the CO2 ended up in the atmosphere.
The €100m (£65m) scheme supplies greenhouses with CO2 at between €40 and €70 a tonne - just over half the price of generating the CO2.

Climate pact between the UK and USA

Carbon trading has developed as a way for countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Each country is given an emissions quota and issues permits to the biggest carbon emitters, such as power firms. Those companies that reduce emissions and use less than their quota can sell leftover permits to others which fail to. Each year the quota is reduced, so market forces push the penalty for emitting greenhouse gases higher. Europe has established an emissions trading network, and at least nine US states have started trading carbon dioxide among themselves.
At the end of July, Tony Blair signed what was hailed as a ground-breaking agreement with California, the world's 12th largest carbon emitter, to fight global warming. The prime minister wants to create a coalition of the willing among those US states prepared to join the European Union's carbon trading scheme.

The United States is responsible for a quarter of the world's global-warming pollution. Bush administration officials argue that requiring cuts in greenhouse gases would cost the US economy 5m jobs. The California state Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has set out an ambitious climate change programme for California amid fears that water shortages and heatwaves will destroy the state's economy, including its vineyards, within 20 years. In June last year, the state committed itself to cut carbon emissions back to 2000 levels by 2010, a fall of 59m tonnes, and by 2020 down to 1990 levels, a fall of 145m tonnes. Polls show Californians regard climate change as the biggest issue facing the state.

Acid rain … could save us from global warming

According to the atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen a potent mix of pollutants would scatter incoming sunlight and bounce more sunlight back into space. This could lower the rate of global warming. However, consider the irony. In half a human lifetime the planet has faced three atmospheric crises - acid rain, loss of ozone, and global warming.
He argues that you could compensate for global warming by stuffing huge balloons with sulphate particles and floating them up into the stratosphere before bursting them. Or you could use really big guns to shoot the material up into the atmosphere. Either way, you'd have to get 2m tonnes of the stuff to an altitude of more than 16 km, every year. That would cost $25bn-$50bn a year. Yet, this is a tiny amount compared to the $1,000 billion spent each year on guns, bombs, rockets, tanks, nuclear submarines and stealth bombers each year.
The proposal should not be thought of as madness. It is instead as another way of waking up the world to the huge size of the problems ahead.

Expert says climate change will reach point of no return in 20 years

The world only has 10 years to develop and implement new technologies to generate clean electricity before climate change reaches the point of no return, according to Peter Smith, a professor of sustainable energy at the University of Nottingham. He said the UK had to embark on a strategy to reduce energy use by insulating homes better and encouraging more micro-generation schemes such as solar panels. The scientific opinion is that we have a ceiling of 440 parts per million [ppm] of atmospheric carbon before there is a tipping point, a step change in the rate of global warming. The rate at which we are emitting now, around 2ppm a year and rising, we could expect that that tipping point will reach us in 20 years time. That gives us 10 years to develop technologies that could start to bite into the problem. The current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 380ppm.

Richard Branson and climate change

Sir Richard Branson has pledged $3bn (£1.6bn) to tackle climate change. The billionaire pledged all profits from his Virgin air and rail interests over the next 10 years to combating rising global temperatures. However, the estimated $3bn will be invested in Virgin Fuels, a company owned by Branson’s Virgin empire. Much of the investment will focus on biofuels, an alternative to oil-based fuels made from plants.

However, in 2000, scientists at Imperial College said that bioethanol was not suitable and could be dangerous. Moreover, the fertilisers and pesticides needed to grow the crop takes large amounts of energy, as does processing it into fuel. Others say the amount of land required to grow crops on a sufficient scale could increase deforestation.

Rare clouds over Antarctica

A rare ‘nacreous’ or ‘mother-of-pearl’ cloud formation, appearing 12 miles above in the stratosphere, was recently photographed in Antarctica. ‘Mother-of-pearl clouds’ are caused by the sunlight diffracting as it passes around tiny ice crystals. Much less dramatic examples of the same optical effect can sometimes be seen as sunlight passes through patches of lower, common cloud like cirrus.

Since they form much higher than common clouds - at altitudes of between 12 and 15 miles - mother-of-pearl clouds are most apparent around sunrise and sunset when their colours stand out against the darkened sky. They only appear when stratospheric temperatures are below -83ºC. This happens more frequently during winter in the Antarctic than in the Arctic. This is why this type of cloud is more commonly observed in the southern hemisphere. It is also why the ozone layer is so much more depleted over the South Pole, compared with the North Pole.

Mother-of-pearl clouds' tiny ice crystals also act to encourage chemical reactions between ozone and the chlorine and bromine that have been introduced into the atmosphere by use of substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosols and fridge mechanisms. Without the presence of stratospheric clouds, reactions leading to the destruction of the ozone layer are negligible. The nacreous cloud's ice particles behave as nuclei on to which the ozone breakdown can take place.

Though mother-of-pearl clouds are officially known as ‘polar stratospheric clouds’, they are now common over Scotland, and have been observed as far south as the Midlands. More mother-of-pearl clouds appear during colder winters, which lead to a greater subsequent depletion of ozone.
CO2 has a tendency to trap the sun's heat into the lower atmosphere. By keeping more of the heat below, increased levels of greenhouse gases also tend to cool the atmosphere above. Lower average winter temperatures in the upper atmosphere might explain why nacreous clouds seem to be appearing with increased frequency and distribution.

This winter’s forecast

Hopes of plenty of winter rain to end the drought affecting much of south-east England are fading. The Met Office is now predicting average winter temperatures across Britain, with a colder spell towards the end of the season.
The long-range prediction is based mainly on data on ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic. But part of the reason for the shift in the forecast since July is the expected influence of a weak El Niño event developing in the tropical eastern Pacific, which is tipping the balance towards a colder winter.

Catastrophic mudslide could last 100 years

Mud, gas and boiling water that have been gushing out of the ground in East Java since May, submerging half a dozen villages and 20 factories, could continue for a century with catastrophic consequences. Efforts to seal the channels through which the mud is escaping are unlikely to succeed, and it is impossible to tell how much fluid remains underground.

Unless the flow stops soon, the affected land, which has already starting sinking, could subside significantly. The mud started flowing on May 29, a couple of hundred metres from where the gas company PT Lapindo Brantas was drilling an exploratory well nearly two miles deep. It has been gushing up to 50,000 cubic metres a day ever since.
At least four villages will almost certainly have to be destroyed, and two others have been flooded. More than 11,000 people have evacuated their homes.

British scientists tell Exxon to stop funding climate change denial

Some of Britain's leading scientists have challenged the US oil company ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. The Royal Society cites its own survey which found that ExxonMobil last year distributed $2.9m to 39 groups that the society says misrepresent the science of climate change.
Environmentalists regard ExxonMobil as one of the least progressive oil companies because, unlike competitors such as BP and Shell, it has not invested heavily in alternative energy sources.

Hole in ozone layer

Scientists have predicted that the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica could be healed within 70 years. The hole reached its maximum size for this year, breaking previous records for late September.

The ozone ‘hole’ opens up over the Antarctic every year in mid-August and usually peaks in size by September. This year it's been very cold in the Antarctic ozone layer and, as a consequence, the hole has had a chance to expand to quite a large size. At its peak the hole reached 10.4m square miles, just below the overall record of 10.8m square miles in 2000.
The Antarctic ozone hole will reach sizes on the order of 8m-10m square miles nearly every year until about 2018 or so. Around 2018 things should slowly start improving, and somewhere between 2020 and 2025 the ozone hole will begin to decrease in size.