7th July - Today's News

China builds $17.6 billion wind project

China will begin construction of a 120-billion yuan ($17.6 billion) wind power project in about two weeks in Gansu province as part of a major push to boost renewable energy and cut the nation's reliance on coal, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Now surely the question is: why would China spend all this money when they could as easily build a load of new, cheap, coal powered stations? Unless they genuinely believe that increasing carbon emissions are not such a good idea? Do the Chinese pay 'green' taxes I wonder?

Tropical zone expanding due to climate change

Researchers at James Cook University concluded the tropics had widened by up to 500 kilometres (310 miles) in the past 25 years after examining 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

They looked at findings from long-term satellite measurements, weather balloon data, climate models and sea temperature studies to determine how global warming was impacting on the tropical zone.

El Nino weather menace looms for frail economies

A nascent El Nino weather cycle threatens to wreak more economic havoc and disrupt raw material production across a wide swath of the world, evoking memories of the killer edition of 1998.

San Franciscans need to get ready for even foggier summers

The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it's about to get even foggier.

Cupar people trapped as flash floods cause chaos

FLASH FLOODING caused chaos in parts of Fife yesterday, flooding homes and businesses and leaving people trapped.

Water levels rose within minutes in Cupar and surrounding villages after thunder and lightning brought with it a sudden and torrential morning downpour.

And a related story, but this time firmly in the "don't believe what you read in the paper" category: Aboyne homes hit by floods

Drains in the Aberdeenshire town overflowed as around 10 inches of rain fell in Aboyne

That's around 255mm. Given the highest official rainfall in the area was 17.8mm at Braemar I'm thinking that's a bit of an exaggeration! As I've noted before, high rainfall totals are often not themselves responsible for flash flooding - it's more often much lower totals but falling in a very short space of time leading to drains overflowing. In this case, 10mm falling in a few minutes could easily have caused the sort of flooding described.