It is Britain’s oil and gas capital but Aberdeen comes last in the solar energy stakes after scientists found it has the least sunshine and some of the lowest average temperatures in Britain. Its position as the dullest – and, at an average 9.2C, one of the coldest – cities is linked to the fogs that roll in from the North Sea, plus clouds sweeping down from the Cairngorms, say researchers. The survey – designed to find the best places to site solar farms – also found that Plymouth was the sunniest and warmest place. The data gathered included the yearly “global horizontal irradiance” at 27 sites, in kilowatt-hours per square metre. Plymouth, the sunniest and warmest city at 12.2C, received 103, but Aberdeen only 77. London, second highest, scored 97.
Times 23rd Sept 2018 read more »
Warnings about the dangers of global warming are being watered down in the final version of a key climate report for a major international meeting next month, according to reviewers who have studied earlier versions of the report and its summary. They say scientists working on the final draft of the summary are censoring their own warnings and “pulling their punches” to make policy recommendations seem more palatable to countries – such as the US, Saudi Arabia and Australia – that are reluctant to cut fossil-fuel emissions, a key cause of global warming. “Downplaying the worst impacts of climate change has led the scientific authors to omit crucial information from the summary for policymakers,” said one reviewer, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. The report – to be presented at a meeting in Korea in early October – will make clear that allowing temperatures to rise by 2C will have devastating consequences, including rising sea levels, spreading deserts, loss of natural habitats and species, dwindling ice-caps and increases in the number of devastating storms.
Observer 23rd Sept 2018 read more »