History > 2007 > UK > Nature / Weather (III)

It’s been a funny old

meteorological year

December 31, 2007
From The Times
Paul Simons: Weather Eye

The outstanding feature of this year’s weather was undoubtedly the devastating summer floods. But there was plenty of other weird weather across the UK.New year came in with a bang in Torbay, Devon, as a great big ball of light dropped out of the sky and exploded — a possible case of ball lightning. At the end of March, drivers across England and Wales found their cars covered in dust swept over from Sahara Dust in Libya.

April was bone-dry, the fourth-driest and warmest April on record. So the last thing anyone was expecting was the wettest May to July period to follow. In May a waterspout played around at Leith Docks, Edinburgh. But despite the black clouds and rain in June, a fantastic circle of light known as a halo was seen over Buxton, Derbyshire, created by ice crystals in high-altitude clouds.

A swarm of tornados descended across Central England on September 23, uprooting trees, turning over caravans and sending roof tiles flying, and in November a teenager washing her hair at home in Blandford, Dorset, got the shock of her life when lightning struck the house and shot through the shower head she was holding. It was also the month that the East Coast came close to flooding from a storm surge down the North Sea.

    It’s been a funny old meteorological year, Ts, 31.12.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article3111288.ece

Floods 'as great a threat as terror',

says Sir Michael Pitt

December 17, 2007
From Times Online
Hannah Fletcher

Flooding in the UK is a threat on the scale of terrorism or an influenza pandemic, according to the author of a report on this summer's floods.

Sir Michael Pitt, Chairman of the South West Strategic Health Authority and head of an independent review of the flooding that devastated much of the country in June and July, said today that he felt "flood risk management should be right up there".

"I think we should put this on a par with the terrorism risk or an influenza pandemic," he said.

The Pitt Review interim report was released this morning and contains 87 recommendations and 15 urgent proposals to prepare Britain to cope better with future flooding.

Sir Michael said this year's flooding was so severe because the ground was already heavily saturated. But he warned that this would only get worse in the future, due to changing weather conditions and more frequent rainfall.

"The changing natures of floods means we need to improve our flood warnings," Sir Michael said. "Flood risk and events of this sort are here to stay,"

The summer floods were a "wake-up call", Sir Michael said. "Despite the impressive efforts of emergency responders, much work needs to be done to avoid emergencies of the scale we witnessed this summer happening again.

“The country was fortunate that the impact was not much more severe.”

The report, which calls on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to establish a national flood emergency framework.

The Environment Agency should carry out frequent and systematic monitoring of ground water levels at times of high risk, and water authorities and local authorities should be involved in flood planning by developing proposals for investment in the drainage network.

The report also stresses the need for the public to prepare themselves. All households should put together a "flood kit" containing important documents such as insurance policies, and equipment such as torches, radios, blankets and first aid kits.

They should stay in close contact with the Environment Agency through Floodline Warnings Direct, a free telephone line that provides flood warnings, so that they are notified as soon as there is a risk of flooding.

Other recommendations include calling for all buildings built in flood risk areas to be flood-resilient, and encouraging the Government and the insurance industry to work together to educate the public on the benefits of insurance.

Sir Michael was asked by ministers to begin the review in August after weeks of flooding destroyed 48,000 homes and 7,000 businesses across the UK, costing the economy billions of pounds. Power and water supplies were lost, railway lines, eight motorways and many other roads were closed and large parts of five counties and four cities were brought to a standstill. According to the report, it was the biggest loss of critical infrastructure since World War II.

The aim of the review was to identify the lessons to be learned from the emergency and to make recommendations that would help the country adapt and deal more effectively with flooding on the unprecedented level of last summer.

The Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has given his full backing to all of the report's recommendations and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised to increase funding for flood prevention from £600 million to £800 million, but the money does not become fully available until 2010/11.

Sir Michael's 15 "urgent" recommendations

- The Environment Agency should monitor groundwater levels more frequently and systematically at times of high flood risk

-The Environment Agency should urgently identify the areas at highest risk of flooding

- The Environment Agency should urgently develop and implement a policy on the use of temporary flood defence

- All local responders should urgently review their arrangements for water rescue to consider whether they are adequate in light of the summer floods

- All local responders should urgently review their designated rest centres to ensure they have the necessary resilience

- The Cabinet Office should urgently conside the costs and benefits of making arrangements for the acquisition of supplies during a major emergency

- The Department of Health should implement guidance clarifying the role of organisations involved in providing advice during a major incident as soon as possible

- The guidance being prepared by the Cabinet Office about support for vulnerable people in an emergency should be issued urgently

- The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should urgently develop a national flood emergency framework

- Local authorities, emergency services and health bodies should be urgently provided with a detailed assessment of critical infrastructure in their area

- The Environment Agency should work urgently with telecommunications companies to create telephone flood warning schemes

- Local responders should urgently develop plans to enhance flood warnings through door-knocking by local authorities

- Local responders should urgently make arrangements to involve the local media in flood preparation and response

- Members of the public should prepare flood kits, including personal documents, torches, radios, blankets and first aid kits

- Individuals should increase their preparedness for flooding by registering with Flood Warnings Direct, ensuring they have adequate insurance, learning how to turn off their gas, electricity and water, and storing important documents in waterproof containers

    Floods 'as great a threat as terror', says Sir Michael Pitt, Ts Online, 17.12.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3062193.ece

UK heading

for second hottest year

on record

The Guardian
Friday December 14 2007
Ian Sample, science correspondent

Britain is on course for its second warmest year since records began, according to climate scientists at the Met Office and University of East Anglia.

Preliminary temperature charts covering January to November show the year was 1.1C warmer than the long-term average temperature taken over the 30 years leading up to 2000. Only last year, when July temperatures peaked at a record 36.5C, was hotter with an average temperature of 1.15C above the 30-year average.

Scientists at the Met Office's Hadley Centre said global temperature charts put 2007 as the seventh warmest year on the planet, according to records that date back to 1850. The figures add to a trend of soaring temperatures, with 11 of the warmest years now recorded around the globe occurring in the past 13 years.

According to the UN's Nobel prizewinning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures are set to rise by between 1.1C and 6.4C by 2100, compared with 1980-99 levels.

Even if December temperatures fall to 1C below the 30-year average, 2007 will still rank as Britain's 3rd-warmest year since record keeping began in 1914. Records show the past six years are on course to be the warmest Britain has experienced.

The year's climate has been influenced by El Niño and La Niña ocean temperature swings, which may have helped keep temperatures in Britain down.

Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, said the global temperatures were above average with a weak El Niño at the start of the year: "However, since the end of April the La Niña event has taken some of the heat out of what could have been an even warmer year."

    UK heading for second hottest year on record, G, 14.12.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/14/climatechange

London joins national campaign

to banish the curse of the plastic bag

Published: 14 November 2007
The Independent
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
 

British shops hand out a staggering 13 billion every year. But after a decision by 33 London councils yesterday, plastic bags could be soon be consigned to history, unmourned by anyone who cares about cleaning up the environment.

Eighty villages, towns and cities, including Brighton and Bath, have introduced or are considering a ban on them since shops in the Devon market town of Modbury went "plastic bag- free". But yesterday represented the most significant move yet. The capital is now on board.

All 33 authorities in the London Councils group voted for legislation to prevent shops in the capital handing out free plastic bags. In the next fortnight Westminster Council will present a private Bill to the House of Commons which would apply to every London shop from the humblest newsagent to Harrods.

Shoppers clutching large numbers of bags in London's West End could become a thing of the past; instead they will be asked to use sturdy reusable plastic "bags for life" or cotton or string hold-alls. London's authorities said they needed to halt the environmental damage done by plastic bags, which use oil and landfill space and kill marine wildlife.

The ban is likely to be opposed by big retailers such as Tesco which prefer encouragement rather than coercion to change behaviour. But campaigners point to international trailblazers that have already banned the bags, places as diverse as Tasmania and Tanzania, which this year were joined by Paris and San Francisco. London would be the biggest urban centre yet to take the plunge.

Peter Robinson, director of Waste Watch, said: "We've seen successful action taken on carrier bags all across the world from Australia to Zanzibar, and now it's time for London to take a lead on this issue in the UK."

Although the London ban could take years to come into force, the groundswell of opposition to free disposable bags is unmistakable – and perhaps unstoppable. Major retailers have signed an agreement with the Government's waste body, Wrap, to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bag use by 25 per cent by the end of next year. They are making the bags more lightweight, exploring biodegradable options, and discouraging their routine distribution.

Tesco says it has cut its use of carrier bags by 1 billion to 3 billion after a high-profile campaign to give loyalty points to shoppers reusing them. Today Sainsbury's will announce in its financial results that it has cut plastic bag use by 10 per cent as a result of having signs at the checkouts asking shoppers to consider the environment and promoting jute and cotton bags. Marks & Spencer is to chargeshoppers 5p a plastic bag after a trial in Northern Ireland that cut the number handed out by 66 per cent.

The Government says it is monitoring the efforts in commerce, but is set against a plastic bag tax of the kind introduced five years ago in Ireland, where the number of carrier bags has fallen by 90 per cent. Officials claim there is evidence that Irish shoppers are using other types of plastic instead. The plastic revolution was started by a BBC camerawoman, Rebecca Hosking, from Modbury, after she had seen the deaths of albatross chicks that had eaten plastic. In the absence of government action, 43 traders in the town decided to start their own "plastic bag-free town" in May. The shops refused to give out free plastic bags, charging 5p for a cornstarch bag, 10p for a paper one or £1.50 for a cotton carrier.

Trade did not fall off, and the six-month experiment proved so successful that Modbury has made the change permanentand made the carrying of a plastic bag an antisocial activity.

Other towns such as Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire and Overton in Hampshire have followed suit, and the idea of going "plastic bag-free" is taking hold elsewhere, such as in Brighton, where councillors last month called on the city's retailers to stop giving out bags.

The plastics industry insisted that such bans were environmentally harmful, arguing that re-use of plastic bags – to line bins, wrap packed lunches and scoop up dogs' mess – made them more environmentally friendly than cotton alternatives, and that the oil used to make the HDPE (high density polyethylene) bags came from a by-product of oil.

Nonetheless, the industry says that unnecessary use of bags is a problem, and is calling on shoppers to consider whether they really need them. Peter Woodall, of the Packaging and Industrial Films Association, said: "We are losing the battle in terms of hearts and minds of the public, who now certainly believe that the plastic bag is a hazard to health and the environment and something we need to eradicate from society."

Ms Hosking, who started the Modbury experiment, said that plastic bags were the start of a campaign against disposable consumer culture. "It's our consumption of everything – whether it's petrol, water or consumer goods – that is driving virtually every environmental problem on the planet and it needs to stop. We have shown that individual people can make a difference," she said.

A local convenience, a global problem

Anyone who has seen The Graduate, one of the great movie classics, will remember vividly the single-word piece of advice that Dustin Hoffman's confused young career-hopeful, Benjamin Braddock, receives from a well-meaning family friend: Plastics.

Asked to clarify what exactly he means, the family friend, Mr McGuire, explains: "There's a great future in plastics." And in 1967, when the film was made, no doubt there was.

Unfortunately, in the succeeding years, many aspects of what then seemed to be those oh-so-convenient, revolutionary, synthetic materials have come to appear not a blessing but a curse – and plastic bags are high on the list.

The trouble with them is that they have the vices of their virtues. They are incredibly cheap and light, and so are produced in astronomical, scarcely credible, numbers; and remarkably tough for their lightness, they are incredibly persistent in the environment once we have finished with them.

Nobody knows exactly how many plastic bags are consumed annually worldwide, but a good estimate is between 500 billion and 1,000 billion, which comes out at more than a million a minute – and then they're all thrown away. But as they do not biodegrade, huge numbers don't disappear. They have become the most ubiquitous item of litter. They are the icons of the throwaway society.

In parts of Africa, there are so many blowing through the bush that a cottage industry has sprung up in harvesting windblown bags and using them to weave hats, or even more bags.

But in some parts of the environment, they represent a lethal threat to wildlife, in particular in the oceans. According to the British Antarctic Survey, they have spread from Spitzbergen north of the Arctic Circle to the Falkland Islands at the other end of the globe.

When floating they can resemble jellyfish, and so are often mistakenly eaten by sea turtles and other marine mammals and birds, with fatal results.

No one denies plastic bags are satisfyingly convenient. But as Billy Joel sang, you pay for your satisfaction somewhere along the line.

Michael McCarthy

    London joins national campaign to banish the curse of the plastic bag, I, 14.11.2007, http://environment.independent.co.uk/green_living/article3157780.ece

Relief after East Anglian coast

emerges from storm surge

Hundreds who spent night in schools and leisure centres
wake to find only minor damage

Saturday November 10, 2007
Guardian
Rachel Williams

Dawn came with a terrible sense of foreboding as East Anglia woke in the knowledge that the worst high seas for more than 50 years were heading for shore amid dire warnings of threats to life and property.

Sandbags had been filled, makeshift barricades erected and thousands of homes evacuated as a tidal surge to rival the devastating high waters of 1953 approached. But when morning came the peak of the conditions caused by a combination of gale-force winds in the North Sea and a high tide which battered the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk left only minor damage.

Police in Norfolk had knocked on 7,500 doors to tell residents they should consider evacuating. Hundreds spent the night in temporary accommodation in schools and leisure centres, while others moved further inland to stay with family and friends.

With memories of the summer's catastrophic floods in Yorkshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire fresh in the minds of residents and politicians, no one was taking any chances. The government's emergency Cobra committee met three times, convening before dawn, with Gordon Brown at its head.

In parts of the region, waters rose above 9ft - the highest mark since the 1953 floods, which killed more than 300 people. There was localised flooding in Norfolk and Suffolk, but no major defences were breached and last night none of the eight severe flood warnings issued on Thursday remained in place.

Lincolnshire, the Humber, the north-east of England, and Kent escaped trouble. In London the Thames barrier and the Queensborough and Dartford Creek barriers were operated. The Environment Agency warned, however, that the Broads, which do not drain between tides, faced flood risks over the next two tidal cycles - at least 24 hours.

The RSPB said several important coastal bird breeding grounds had been flooded and urged the government to create large areas of reedbed inland "to prepare for the day when the sea claims large areas of the English coast".

The agency's chief executive, Barbara Young, said East Anglia had come within a "whisker" of widespread flooding and urged caution from those in areas which may yet be affected.

One of the worst hit coastal villages was Walcott in Norfolk, where 12ft waves breached the sea wall, smashed conservatories and holiday accommodation, and blew caravans and boats across the coast road.

Sue Tubby was clearing out the wreckage of the wooden chalet her parents have owned for 40 years, which had lost a side wall and half its front to the storms. Shattered glass, mud and sand lay strewn across the sodden furniture. "It's only ever had about one stone through the window in all that time until now," she said.

In Great Yarmouth, which had feared it would bear the brunt of the surge, there was only localised flooding. When high tide came and went without incident, residents gathered on the Haven bridge over the heavily swollen river Yare to see how close they had come and watch the storm drains bubbling over on to the bankside walkway.

Pub landlord Lee Johnson spent the night moving kegs of beer from the cellar in his premises across the road. "It was so stressful," he said. "This is a new business and it's make or break."

Fire crews used dinghies to rescue 30 people from sheltered accommodation in Lowestoft, Suffolk. A total of 700 people were evacuated in the coastal town.

About 400 elderly and infirm people stayed overnight at Cliff Park high school in nearby Gorleston. Some had tried to sleep but others had stayed awake all night, buoyed up by tea, cakes and games of cribbage. By 11am yesterday those left were exhausted but upbeat. "We were lucky," said Muriel Hardie. "There's been some worry about what was happening to our homes but there's been some fun too."

And as the sun came out mid-morning, those who the night before had feared the worst took to the seafront to relax as the relief began sank in. Surfers, many of whom had been watching the conditions late into the night, gathered at Gorleston to take advantage of some of the best waves the town had seen in years.

    Relief after East Anglian coast emerges from storm surge, G, 10.11.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,,2208810,00.html

2.30pm GMT update

East coast flood fears pass as tides ebb

Friday November 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
David Batty and agencies


Fears of widespread flooding along the east coast of England diminished today as surging tides peaked without any major incidents.

Evacuated residents were allowed back to their homes in Norfolk this morning as water failed to reach the levels predicted due to a combination of gale-force winds and a high tide.

The Environment Agency (EA) said the main tidal peak in East Anglia, the area most at risk from flooding, had already passed. There is only one severe flood warning still in place, down from eight this morning.

The number of standard flood warnings has also dropped to eight, while there are 17 flood watch alerts nationwide, concentrated in East Anglia, the north-east region and the south coast. Twenty-five areas have now been given the all clear.

The prime minister said the government was ready to help any affected communities.

Gordon Brown, who chaired two meetings of the emergency Cobra committee in less than 12 hours, said he hoped people were reassured that everything was being done to ensure their safety.

"Our first priority is to ensure people are safe, and that's why over the course of yesterday and throughout the night we have been bringing in the helicopters, the sandbags, the preparations that are absolutely necessary so that people are safe," Mr Brown said.

"National government stands ready to help local communities with any difficulties that arise."

Mr Brown thanked people for their cooperation in evacuating homes and businesses in high-risk areas.

The EA had warned of "extreme danger to life and property" in coastal areas of Norfolk and Suffolk and parts of Kent and Essex amid signs a storm surge could lead to flash flooding.

Norfolk police said that some evacuees were now being allowed to return to their homes.

"The peak has passed without major incident although there was localised flooding," he said. "We are now telling people in the rest centres that they can start to return home and roads are reopening in Great Yarmouth."

A Norfolk county council spokesman added that it was now focused on the clean-up operation.

Kent police said the county had escaped with only minor flooding as the surge passed. A group of people believed to be surfers were taken to the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Thanet for routine checks after being helped out of the water in the east of the county, a spokesman added.

The EA said surge levels were expected to be nearly 20cm (8in) lower than originally feared. The Thames barrier in London was raised as a precaution.

Water levels had been predicted to be as high as in the floods of 1953, when hundreds died and large parts of East Anglia were submerged. The EA spokesman said: "Thankfully the levels will be lower than 1953. In 1953, there was a 3.2 metre surge and also high tides and a storm."

A surge had also been expected at Immingham, in Humberside, where water levels peaked at around 4.30am today. The coastguard at nearby Cleethorpes reported no problems.

    East coast flood fears pass as tides ebb, G, 9.11.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,,2208280,00.html

12.30pm GMT

Residents relax after Yare scare

Rachel Williams joins the people of Great Yarmouth
as the river rises

Friday November 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


After a night of anxious preparations for the worst, the people of Great Yarmouth were reflecting today on what looks like a lucky escape from the threat of floods.

Many gathered on the town's Haven Bridge at the time the surge had been expected to peak at about 7.45am to watch the River Yare swirling beneath it.

With the water grazing the underside of the bridge in some places and bubbling out of storm drains on riverside walkways, while fierce winds raged and rain fell, it was a dramatic scene by any standards.

But residents, relieved that serious flooding had been avoided, were largely relaxed.

Others headed to the seafront to watch impressive waves smashing against the pier and examine just how unusually far the water had risen: less than 2ft (0.6m) from the top of the promenade.

Jenny Malins, out for an early morning stroll with her neighbour, said she had never seen anything like it in the 57 years she had lived in the Norfolk town - although she was too young to remember the floods of 1953.

"We got a knock on the door at about 20 to three from police saying we should be on red alert and ready to be evacuated at any time," she said.

Having been up for most of the night moving beer kegs from his cellar, Lee Johnson, the landlord of The Mitre pub, was watching water seeping through the riverbank wall with some concern.

"These are the highest water levels we've had for years," he said. "It's been very stressful. I've got a new business and this is make or break time."

Just to the south of Great Yarmouth in Gorleston, the fears of the night before seemed all but forgotten as residents headed out during the morning in the bright sunshine to watch surfers enjoying some of the best waves they had known in the seaside town.

    Residents relax after Yare scare, G, 9.11.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,,2208448,00.html

10.30am GMT

'It is quite a dramatic spectacle'

Friday November 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Taylor


Hundreds of people gathered along Southwold seafront this morning as huge waves generated by the tidal surge tested the town's sea defences.

Several beach huts in the Suffolk town were washed away as the high tide coincided with a biting north wind to produce a 10ft swell.

"We've never seen it quite as high as this," Michael Miller, who has a holiday home in the town, said. "I don't think we are in danger of flooding here, but it is quite a dramatic spectacle."

Margaret Wilson, who spends two weeks every month in Southwold, said that although the surge had destroyed at least three beach huts, the damage had not been as bad as many people had feared.

"We saw the predictions on the television, so we were really quite worried about what would happen," she said. "I think it is worse in other places along the coast but, fingers crossed, the town here has not been too badly affected so far."

As she spoke, another huge wave washed over the huts on the shorefront a few metres below.

"They have said that this was going to be the worst flooding since 1953, but we can remember at least two occasions when huts have been washed away since then so we have seen all this before," she said.

By 10.15am, locals said they thought the threat of severe flooding had passed.

Looking down on the damaged huts from the quayside, Southwold resident Micky Button said: "Three or four huts have gone just like that.

"It means that there will be a bit of salvage going around over the next few days and, to be honest, the out of towners who can afford those huts can afford to replace them."

    'It is quite a dramatic spectacle', G, 9.11.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,,2208337,00.html

Analysis

Lessons of 1953 spurred spending on flood defences

Fifty-four years ago more than 300 Britons died when our coastal defences failed. That catastophe was averted today has much to do with the legacy of defence improvements that disaster left, writes James Sturcke

Friday November 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke


The storm surge of February 1953 triggered one of Europe's worst natural disasters in recent centuries, killing over 2,000 people.

In Britain, more than 300 people drowned and the tide lapped at the parapet walls of central London.

The flood was a wake-up call. A year after the disaster, the government claimed "12 years' work had been completed in 12 months" to sure up Britain's coastal defences, the Manchester Guardian reported. £20m had been spent on reinforcing "thousands of miles of sea and tidal river defences", the paper said.

"Along large parts of the East Coast ... the wall had been raised by a minimum of three feet and had been greatly increased in width so that the scouring effect of wave action would be virtually impossible," the Guardian reported. Soon after, the Waverley Committee recommended that a barrier be built to protect London from floods. And yet despite recognition that future flooding could be greater since parts of eastern England were sinking, Britain lived up to its reputation of spectacular failure to deliver major projects on time.

By November 1970, the Netherlands had completed many improvements to its flood defences. Meanwhile in England, Lord Bowden was telling parliament that up to 300,000 people could perish in floods and pleading for work on the Thames Barrier to start.

The expectation then was that it would be open by 1978. In fact it was not until 1982 that it became operational at a cost of £440m - 75% over budget.

That major flooding appears to have been avoided by today's surge suggests that improved flood defences along the coast of East Anglia have worked. The threat to human life has also been reduced by better procedures to warn people ahead of expected flooding.

The Met Office's storm tide warning service, informs the Environment Agency of expected deluges. Yesterday the agency's head, Barbara Young, was touring broadcasting studios urging people in coastal eastern England to listen to news bulletins and prepare to evacuate http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/flood/826674/830330/882451/ .

Global warming will require even more robust coastal defences. Sea levels are likely to rise as ice caps melt. The Thames barrier may not be able to cope with flood levels after 2030.

The Environment Agency is currently budgeting £200m over 12 years on extra defences, and a government foresight report in 2004, 'Future Flooding', called for investment in flood defence and coastal erosion to rise by £10m-£30m a year to limit the average annual damage of flooding to £2bn a year by 2080. Damage is currently £1bn a year, said the agency.

The Future Flooding report found that 4m homes in Britain were at risk from flooding due to global warming. In July the Environment Agency warned that protecting London and the south-east from flooding in the next century will cost at least £4bn.

    Lessons of 1953 spurred spending on flood defences, G, 9.11.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,,2208420,00.html

The summer that was every bit as bad for wildlife as the coldest winter

Published: 01 September 2007
The Independent
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

Some of Britain's most endangered creatures were dealt devastating blows by the monsoon summer which ended yesterday.

The effect on wildlife of the weeks of incessant rain and the unprecedented floods which followed was so acute that some species are likely to have suffered local extinctions – and isolated populations may never be able to be re-established.

From water voles to swallowtails, from partridges to bumblebees, species which are rare, declining or even just grimly hanging on suffered catastrophic losses, especially of their young, right across the country.

When the full picture is eventually assessed, Britain's wettest summer on record may be found to have had an effect as damaging as the 20th century's worst winter, 1963 – when millions of wild creatures died in a landscape that was snowbound for two-and-a-half months, and some species, such as the Dartford warbler, were brought to the brink of extinction in the country as a whole.

It is far too soon for a full statistical picture of summer 2007 to emerge, and the evidence of what has happened to wildlife is largely anecdotal – but the anecdotes are all pointing in the same direction.

Take birds, and one of Britain's rarest species, the bittern – the brown, long-legged relative of the grey heron which nests in the reedbeds of East Anglia.

Bitterns are counted by the number of males that are "booming" – making the low, far-carrying call that attracts the female. Within the past 20 years there were as few as 11 booming males in all of the country, but strenuous conservation efforts had this spring brought that up to more than 50.

Then disaster struck. After 2007's wonderfully warm April, cold and rain swept in during the early May Bank Holiday weekend. At Minsmere, the flagship reserve of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Suffolk, five bittern nests were washed away, and the young birds died in the low temperatures. "It was cold and wet right across the bittern's breeding range," said Mark Avery, the RSPB's director of conservation. "One wet cold weekend dealt a devastating blow to one of Britain's rarest birds."

But it wasn't just bitterns. Two of Britain's most rapidly-declining farmland birds, the lapwing and the grey partridge, have also suffered terribly from the washout summer. Paradoxically, the lapwings were hard hit by the hot April, because the dried ground was too hard for them to dig out the invertebrates to feed their chicks. But then they were dealt a double whammy by the downpours which followed, and when rivers such as the Severn burst their banks in areas such as Gloucestershire, many nests in the riverside meadows were washed away and the chicks drowned.

The effect of the cold and wet on the grey partridge, which from being a common and familiar bird has declined by nearly 90 per cent in Britain as a whole and is now extinct in many parts of the countryside, was so lamentable that the Game Conservancy Trust issued a special warning notice about what had happened. "Urgent conservation action needs to be taken by all those with a responsibility for managing the British countryside," it said.

As with birds, so with mammals, and what may seem at first sight to be a curious victim of a wet summer – the water vole. Ratty of The Wind in the Willows was once common but now, because of the depredations of wild American mink, is our most endangered wild animal. The swollen river levels are thought to have drowned many water voles in their burrows.

But the toll taken may be locally very high, according to Brian Eversham, of the Bedfordshire Wildlife Trust. "It's because many of the water vole populations are now small and isolated," Mr Eversham said. "If they are wiped out in an area, there may well be no other nearby population to recolonise it." Perhaps the worst-affected wildlife sector of all this summer has been invertebrates, comprising insects, spiders, worms and other creepy-crawlies. The warmth of April gave butterflies in particular a fantastic start – 11 British species recorded their earliest-ever emergence dates – but the deluges and cold that followed did real damage.

Britain's most spectacular species, the rare swallowtail, appears to have had a very poor breeding year in its only home, the Norfolk Broads, where flooding has reduced the availability of the insect's food plant, milk parsley, and also appears to have drowned many caterpillars. But other uncommon species have also suffered badly, such as the Duke of Burgundy, where in some areas it was raining for its entire month-long flight period – meaning mating is much less likely to take place.

    The summer that was every bit as bad for wildlife as the coldest winter, I, 1.9.2007, http://environment.independent.co.uk/lifestyle/article2917361.ece

Get ready for the next weather phenomenon: fog

Published: 01 September 2007
The Independent
By Michael McCarthy and Jessica King

Spring was glorious. Summer was the wettest ever. So, in the record year of British weather ups and downs that is 2007, what phenomenon can we expect from autumn, which begins today? The answer is fog.

The Atlantic lows which have dogged the British Isles almost continuously for the past three months, giving us our monsoon summer, are likely to give way now to many more settled periods of high pressure, according to the Met Office's autumn forecast, issued last week. Rainfall and windy weather are likely to be below average, and in the still, calm conditions, fog is more likely to form, especially after the autumn equinox of 21 September when nights become longer than days – and so chillier.

"There will be a greater risk of fog, compared to normal, during the latter part of autumn," said the chief forecaster, Nick Graham. "As the nights get longer and colder it may cause more impact, as it is likely to linger longer during the morning."

It makes more likely Keats' description of autumn as that "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" – although there is some doubt about the fruit, because of the year's earlier topsy-turvy weather pattern.

For much of the natural world, the wonderful early start to the breeding and growing season provided by the warmest April on record was cancelled by the deluges of the height of summer. So the picture is mixed on how many hips, haws, sloes, blackberries and hazelnuts that countryside walkers may find in the next couple of months.

The early start to spring meant blackberries fruited very early – they were available for Wimbledon in late June – but since then some of the early fruit has rotted.

A lot of blackberries have been noted as "rotting rather than ripening" by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. "Add to this the fact that the wet and lack of sun will have depressed yields of 'wild foods' as much as agricultural crops, and we might be looking at a hungry autumn for birds and perhaps small mammals like shrews and voles [seed eaters and insectivores]," said a spokesman for the Wildlife Trusts Partnership. "A lot will depend on specific circumstance – for example, grazers like rabbits will have plenty to eat."

But the stress from the weather seems to have induced some tree species, such as hawthorns, to produce more berries.

And in many places naturalists are beginning to think it may be a very good autumn for wild mushrooms. Wildlife Trusts right across Britain are noticing that there seem to be more mushrooms and toadstools about than usual, with some autumn species already well advanced.

    Get ready for the next weather phenomenon: fog, I, 1.9.2007, http://environment.independent.co.uk/lifestyle/article2917361.ece

From voles to beetles, they all suffered this summer

Published: 01 September 2007
The Independent
By Brian Eversham

As the wettest, weirdest summer I've seen in 35 years as a naturalist draws to an end, what will it mean for wildlife long-term? For most insects and other invertebrates, it has been a poor season (though those which like it damp have thrived).

Butterflies had a bad time of it – most prefer warm and sunny conditions for flying, feeding and finding mates. Weeks of almost daily heavy rain was a literal wash-out for insects which feed on flowers – the nectar was washed away and pollen was waterlogged. Short-lived species such as hoverflies were hit hardest. Where meadows flooded, huge numbers of voles and shrews may have drowned, so there could be local food shortages for the kestrels and barn owls which depend on them.

For most species, a poor summer or a flood is a local difficulty, a blip, not a species-threatening catastrophe. But a few may have suffered more seriously. Rare animals, which have retreated to a scatter of small sites, are particularly vulnerable. The swallowtail butterfly, in the Norfolk Broads, may have been hit by flooding while it was a caterpillar, so may be very scarce even in its strongholds next year. The water vole has disappeared from many areas because of habitat loss, and the depredations of American mink – if isolated pockets of water voles drowned in the floods, there may be no others within water vole-travelling distance to recolonise, so they may be gone for good.

Our wildlife has been with us for, maybe, 12,000 years, so has seen its share of miserable summers. But this is probably the worst since we built our motorways and industrialised our agriculture. Before, species could move freely and recolonise pockets of habitat damaged by floods and storms. Now, the patchwork of the British countryside presents more of a challenge. If this summer of extreme events represents the future, we will need to improve the countryside, enlarge our nature reserves, and link habitat patches together if wildlife is going to thrive in the next 50 years.

Brian Eversham is conservation director at the Wildlife Trust for Beds, Cambs and Northants

    From voles to beetles, they all suffered this summer, I, 1.9.2007, http://environment.independent.co.uk/lifestyle/article2917361.ece

8.15am

Manchester wakes to earthquake

Thursday August 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies


Manchester today experienced its sixth earthquake in a month, according to the British Geological Survey.
The tremor was felt in the city centre at 5.46am and measured 2.4 on the Richter scale, a spokesman said.

"Much of the reports were of rumbling and faint shaking. Some people said their beds rattled and moved. One person said a building creaked. An earthquake that size doesn't do damage," he said.

There are around 200 earthquakes a year in Britain, according to seismologists, but only about 25 are felt by people. They rarely produce anything other than minor damage.

In April an earthquake measuring 4.3 shook parts of Kent, leaving one woman with head injuries, cracking buildings and toppling chimneys.

Manchester has experienced five other earthquakes this month, between August 10 and August 23, with the highest magnitude measuring 2.5. The city was hit by a series of tremors five years ago.

    Manchester wakes to earthquake, G, 30.8.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2158819,00.html

Bring me sunshine (at last)

It's late, and it's at the tail-end of storms and floods, but summer is here for the bank holiday

Sunday August 26, 2007
The Observer
Anushka Asthana


Millions of people headed to Britain's parks and beaches this weekend to celebrate the return of the one thing that has been sorely missed this summer - dry, warm weather.

For some it was even, officially, 'a scorcher'. As the temperature reached 28C - in the south-east of England - there was a picnic concert at Battle Abbey, a kite competition in Portsmouth, a sailing regatta in Southend-on-Sea and a medieval festival in Herstmonceux, East Sussex, with falconry, jousting and a 2,000-strong battle re-enactment.

Final preparations were also being put into place for carnivals in London, Leeds and Silloth, Cumbria - one of the few places to experience rain. In London, where a miserable week finally made way for burning sunshine, drummers in Hyde Park sounded the start of the annual Notting Hill Carnival. A number of people were arrested in the build-up to the carnival as part of a police crackdown on suspected criminals thought to be intending to target it.

The spectacular floats, flamboyant costumes, massive sound-systems, hundreds of stalls and fashionable after-parties will draw more than two million people to west London today and tomorrow.

The weather is expected to stay dry although it will cool, to a maximum of 24C today and 21C tomorrow. The sunshine, together with the three-day bank holiday weekend, has led to traffic chaos. There were more than 18 million vehicles on the roads, according to the AA, each travelling an average of 77 miles.

Brighton, Bournemouth and Blackpool were the most common searches on the AA's online route planner as families headed to the coast to enjoy the weather.

Remarkably, though, forecasters revealed yesterday that most of England and Wales has had below average rainfall this August, while Scotland and Northern Ireland have been just above average.

But don't worry - you are not going mad if you thought it felt miserable. Steve Randall, a forecaster for the Met Office, said there had been a lot of cloud and regular, light showers. 'We have not really had a long spell of settled weather since the beginning of June,' he said.

That should all change this week as most of the country enjoys mainly dry weather, with a bit of sunshine thrown in. The only places that will be less settled are the north-east of England, where it is expected to be cloudy, and Scotland, where more rain is forecast.

Bring me sunshine (at last), O, 26.8.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2156500,00.html