23rd April - Today's News: Ash Fallout Continues

The fallout from Iceland continues (literally - there is still ash in the skies over Britain) as flights resume but ministers face call for inquiry into 'shambolic' air ban. The effects of the resumption of flights has been extremely noticeable these past 3 days with a huge amount of obvious manmade cloud developing through the course of the day. At least then it's had that benefit: to awaken people to the impact air traffic has on our skies.

Meanwhile, RAF Typhoon training halted as ash found in engines whilst the US military fears volcano could harm jets. And there are suggestions that the reason a Washington-Moscow flight strands passengers in Azores after emergency landing was because of ash - though this by no means confirmed.

Then, just today, we hear that once again Scottish airports disrupted by ash chaos - a news story which also includes mention of a couple of rumoured cases of commerical airliners over Britain experiencing problems due to ash. The Daily Mail is not the most reliable source, but in the case of the Thomas Cook jet it was observed turning back at the time of the alleged incident - just after our skies had reopened.

According to the media, we can expect the hottest weather of the year so far to arrive this weekend. However, that really only applies to SE England - the Scottish Highlands, for example, have already seen temperatures over 20c but are unlikely to be so warm this weekend.

Climate scientist sues newspaper for 'poisoning' global warming debate. Given some of the nonsense headlines - some of them outright lies - published by the media in this country, then maybe we should be doing the same. Of course, we all know not to believe anything we read in the papers (even though this blog is based around media news!). But those who don't read Climate & Earth Science News may not be so savvy. Maybe I'm naive, but I think newspapers have a responsibility to check facts and not to deliberate mislead the public. They should leave the deceit to those from whom we expect it: politicians....

Experimental explanation of supercooling: why water does not freeze in clouds

Retracing the tracks of dinosaurs reveals ecosystem the size of a continent - basically the same species appear to have existing across whole continents, though this in part was due to much less variability in climate than is seen today. It would be like alligators and bison being found co-existing across most of the USA, rather than existing within niche ecological zones.

Heavy snowfall over Himalaya makes drought in India more likely (there is only one Himalaya - so it never has an 's' on the end!)

More unintended consequences of a dangerous, environmentally damaging, money-making scam as global biofuel drive raises risk of eviction for African farmers.

And earlier this week, Record quake hits Australia's goldfields, two hurt

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