'No Sun link' to climate change By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

'No Sun link' to climate change

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Cloud cover affects temperature - but what determines cloud cover?

Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.

The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.

The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.

But UK scientists found there has been no significant link between cosmic rays and cloudiness in the last 20 years.

Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the University of Lancaster team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.

The IPCC has got it right, so we had better carry on trying to cut carbon emissions Terry Sloan

This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), under very heavy pressure.

Dr Svensmark's idea formed a centrepiece of the controversial documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Wrong path

"We started on this game because of Svensmark's work," said Terry Sloan from Lancaster University.

Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds Henrik Svensmark

"If he is right, then we are going down the wrong path of taking all these expensive measures to cut carbon emissions; if he is right, we could carry on with carbon emissions as normal."

Cosmic rays are deflected away from Earth by our planet's magnetic field, and by the solar wind - streams of electrically charged particles coming from the Sun.

The Svensmark hypothesis is that when the solar wind is weak, more cosmic rays penetrate to Earth.

That creates more charged particles in the atmosphere, which in turn induces more clouds to form, cooling the climate.

The planet warms up when the Sun's output is strong.

Professor Sloan's team investigated the link by looking for periods in time and for places on the Earth which had documented weak or strong cosmic ray arrivals, and seeing if that affected the cloudiness observed in those locations or at those times.

FEELING THE HEAT Three theories on how the Sun could be causing climate change In graphics

"For example; sometimes the Sun 'burps' - it throws out a huge burst of charged particles," he explained to BBC News.

"So we looked to see whether cloud cover increased after one of these bursts of rays from the Sun; we saw nothing."

Over the course of one of the Sun's natural 11-year cycles, there was a weak correlation between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover - but cosmic ray variability could at the very most explain only a quarter of the changes in cloudiness.

And for the following cycle, no correlation was found.

Limited effect

Dr Svensmark himself was unimpressed by the findings.

"Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds," he told BBC News.

"He predicts much bigger effects than we would do, as between the equator and the poles, and after solar eruptions; then, because he doesn't see those big effects, he says our story is wrong, when in fact we have plenty of evidence to support it."

But another researcher who has worked on the issue, Giles Harrison from Reading University, said the work was important "as it provides an upper limit on the cosmic ray-cloud effect in global satellite cloud data".

Climate change: No Sun link A cosmic climate connection?

Dr Harrison's own research, looking at the UK only, has also suggested that cosmic rays make only a very weak contribution to cloud formation.

The Svensmark hypothesis has also been attacked in recent months by Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory.

He showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been slowly declining, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions has outweighed that of solar variability by a factor of about 13 to one.

According to Terry Sloan, the message coming from his research is simple.

"We tried to corroborate Svensmark's hypothesis, but we could not; as far as we can see, he has no reason to challenge the IPCC - the IPCC has got it right.

"So we had better carry on trying to cut carbon emissions."

Climate change impact on mental health

Climate change impact on mental health

03 Dec 2009, PR 263/09

Leading mental health researchers are warning that some of the most important health consequences of climate change will be on mental health, yet this issue is unlikely to be given much attention at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next week.

Dr Lisa Page and Dr Louise Howard from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London reviewed a range of recent research by scientists into the potential mental health impacts of climate change.

In an article published in Psychological Medicine online, the two mental health experts conclude that climate change has the potential to have significant negative effects on global mental health. These effects will be felt most by those with pre-existing serious mental illness, but that there is also likely to be an increase in the overall burden of mental disorder worldwide.

The scientists urge for the lack of research into the mechanisms that cause the effects of climate change on mental disorder to be addressed, so that mental health policy makers can plan for the significant impacts of climate change on mental health that are to be expected.

Dr Page, lead author of the article and Clinical Lecturer in Liaison Psychiatry at the IoP, comments: ‘Climate change is assuming centre stage with the upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen. While delegates will discuss the effects of climate change and possible responses by the international governments, we fear that the effects of climate change on mental health will be largely ignored, posing a tremendous risk to the mental health of millions of people in the not-too-distant future.’

Impacting factors

Dr Page and Dr Howard identified the following ways in which climate change is likely to impact mental health:

• Natural disasters, such as floods, cyclones and droughts, are predicted to increase as a consequence of climate change. Adverse psychiatric outcomes are well documented in the aftermaths of natural disasters and include post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and somatoform disorders.


• The needs of people will chronic mental illness have often been overlooked following disaster in favour of trauma-focused psychological interventions and yet the mentally ill occupy multiply vulnerabilities for increased mortality and morbidity at such times.
  
  
• As global temperatures increase, people with mental illness are particularly vulnerable to heat-related death. Contributing risk factors such as psychotropic medication, pre-existing respiratory and cardiovascular disease and substance misuse, are all highly prevalent in people with serious mental illness. In addition, maladaptive coping mechanisms and poor quality housing are likely to further increase vulnerability, and death by suicide may also increase above a certain temperature threshold.
  
  
• Adverse impacts such as psychological distress, anxiety and traumatic stress resulting from emerging infectious disease outbreaks are also likely to increase if the predicted outbreaks of serious infectious diseases become reality.
  
  
• Coastal change and increased flooding is expected to lead to forced mass migration and displacement, which will undoubtedly lead to more mental illness in affected population.
  
  
• Urbanisation, a phenomenon which will be partially beneficial, for example by increasing opportunities for work and better access to health services, is associated with an increased incidence of schizophrenia in developed countries. In many low- and middle-income countries, mental health provision is already hugely inadequate and is unlikely to be prioritised should further economic collapse occur secondary to climate change.
  
  
• The knowledge of man-made climate change could in itself have adverse effects on individual psychological well-being.

Notes to editors

L. Page and L. Howard, ‘The impact of climate change on mental health (but will mental health be discussed at Copenhagen)?’, 30 November 2009. Psychological Medicine online.

King's College London
King's College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (Times Higher Education 2009) and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has more than 21,000 students from nearly 140 countries, and more than 5,700 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.

King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.

King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit:

Study examines scientists' 'climate credibility'

Study examines scientists' 'climate credibility'
Page last updated at 08:47 GMT, Tuesday, 22 June 2010 09:47 UK

Most experts agreed human activity was affecting the climate system Some 98% of climate scientists that publish research on the subject support the view that human activities are warming the planet, a study suggests.

It added there was little disagreement among the most experienced scientists.

But climate sceptics questioned the findings, saying that publication in scientific journals was not a fair test of expertise.

The findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study's authors said they found "immense" differences in both the expertise and scientific prominence of those who supported the "primary tenets" of latest assessments made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and those who were sceptical of the IPCC's findings.

In general, they added, the researchers who were convinced of the human impact on climate change had published twice as many papers as their sceptical counterparts, and were cited in other people's research two to three times more often.

Continue reading the main story It's typical of this broad-brush study to make such wide ranging claims similar to the infamous 'the debate is over'
Professor Hans von Storch

University of Hamburg
Lead author William Anderegg, from Stanford University in California, US, said the findings suggested that not all experts were equal in what they claimed.

"The researchers who are convinced (by the IPCC's assessment reports) have a lot more experience in climate research and have published a lot more papers in the scientific literature and are generally well respected in their field," he said.

"And it also demonstrates the converse that those who are sceptical of the IPCC's claims, in general, know a lot less about the climate system."

Mr Anderegg and his colleagues drew from a list of 908 researchers who had contributed to research used by the IPCC and have signed statements broadly in support of the UN body's assessments.

On the sceptical side, they chose 475 scientists from a list of 11 major sceptical declarations and open letters.

The researchers said they felt the need to carry out the survey because of the growing public perception that scientific opinion was divided on the issue following recent scandals, such as "climategate" at the UK's University of East Anglia and the use of non-peer reviewed literature in the IPCC findings.

"We really felt that the state of the scientific debate was so far removed from the state of the public discourse and we felt that a good quantitative, rigorous comparison of this would put to rest the notion that the scientists 'disagree' about global warming," Mr Anderegg told BBC News.

'Broad-brush study'

Sceptical groups, however, argued that publication in scientific journals was not a fair test of expertise.

They said that those who choose which papers to publish favoured research that supported the IPCC's view, and suggested that the new study was tautologous.

Professor Hans von Storch, from the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, said: "You have to ask yourself - which are the the tenets of (the human induced climate change) outlined by the IPCC the '"convinced" groups of scientists agree with.

"There is a core of assertions, dealing with the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature and sea level, which enjoy general agreement," Professor von Storch told BBC News.

"While others, for instance, related to the Himalaya glaciers, the changing tropical storms and their damages or the fate of Greenland, are heavy contested.

"It's typical of this broad-brush study to make such wide ranging claims similar to the infamous 'the debate is over'."

Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, from the University of Hull, UK, added: "Who judges expertise and prominence? It looks to me that the authors belong to an IPCC supporting group that must count as believers and belong to the beneficiaries of the man-made warming scare."

New UN climate head demands ambition and transparency

New UN climate head demands ambition and transparency
Page last updated at 14:28 GMT, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 15:28 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version By Steven Duke
Editor, One Planet, BBC World Service

Ms Figueres asked for "ambition, transparency and inclusiveness" The new head of the UN's climate convention has called for ambition and transparency in UN climate talks.

Christiana Figueres also told the BBC that the process used to hammer out a deal at December's Copenhagen summit was "not the most satisfactory".

The Costa Rican diplomat, who has been involved in UN climate negotiations since 1995, said she was "very honoured" to take up the post.

"It's time to make more effort, it's time to be more ambitious," she said.

Speaking to the BBC's One Planet programme, Ms Figueres added: "It is time to be more transparent and it's time to be more inclusive."

Little accord

The immediate challenge facing the new executive secretary will be to rebuild political and public support for UN negotiations, following the perceived failure to deliver a binding agreement at the Copenhagen summit.

A weaker deal - the Copenhagen Accord - was thrashed out by a select group of countries as the summit came to a stuttering end.

Admitting those accord talks were "not transparent and not inclusive enough," Ms Figueres denied that Copenhagen had been a failure, stressing climate change was now "at the top of every political agenda in every country".

The next big summit being organised by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held in Mexico at the end of the year.

Kim Carstensen, leader of the Global Climate Initiative with WWF, offered Ms Figueres the environment group's congratulations.

"She promises to be an inspiring leader who can keep a high level political dialogue going in order to secure the first critical elements of a climate treaty in Mexico," he said.

"Her background should allow her to foster trust between countries and to push for an ambitious climate deal."

Asked if it was time for the UN to look at ways to control the climate other than by enforcing tough cuts in carbon emissions, Ms Figueres re-iterated that emissions will remain the focus of her efforts.

But she did suggest it was wrong to devote all political attention to curbing harmful gases, saying efforts to help countries adapt to a changing climate had become "relegated to the side, and need to come to the centre and front".

She will take over from outgoing executive secretary Yvo de Boer in July, after the annual two weeks of negotiations between officials in Bonn.

You can hear the full interview with Ms Figueres in this week's edition of the One Planet show on the BBC World Service

gnaw through the nuts'

By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News
Agoutis are said to the only rodent able to gnaw through the nuts' outer casing A study examining the natural dispersal of Brazil nuts has suggested that intensive harvesting could threaten future regeneration of the trees.

Researchers found that large rodents quickly ate the nuts, rather than caching them, when supplies were scarce.

When supplies were plentiful, almost twice as many nuts were buried, increasing the chance of successful germination, the team added.

The findings appear in the Journal of Tropical Ecology.

The scientists from Norway, Brazil and the UK said that very little was know about the fate of Brazil nuts under natural condition, despite it being one of the most economically important non-timber crops to come out of Amazonia.

Seasonal effect

In order to get a better understanding of how the seeds were dispersed, they tracked 900 marked seeds to see how seasonal food availability affected agoutis' and acouchis' - large scatter-hoarding rodents - caching rates, dispersal distances and how long the seeds were buried before being eaten.

BRAZIL NUT TREE FACTSContinue reading the main story Can grow to 50m (164ft) high
The trees live for about 500 years
The trees' fruit have a hard case, which contains 10-25 seeds (nuts)
The seeds remain trapped, unless the case is gnawed open by agoutis
Trees located in dense tropical forests can take up to 150 years to reach maturity
"We basically found that the seasons had a very strong effect on the dispersal distances and what happened to the seeds themselves," explained Torbjorn Haugaasen, an ecologist at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

"During the wet season (April) - when there are a lot of other fruits in the forest - more seeds were cached for later retrieval," he added.

"In the dry season (September), on the other hand, more seeds were eaten immediately because there was not that much food around and the rodents needed to draw on the food resource.

"Seeds were also taken further away during the dry season, which suggests that the rodents saw them as a more valuable resource than during the wet season," Dr Haugaasen told BBC News.

The field study, carried out during 2006, showed that 74.4% of seeds were buried during the wet season, compared with just 38.2% during the dry season.

The team suggested that collecting too many Brazil nuts from an area could replicate "dry season" conditions for the rodents.

"Reduced seed availability due to intensive harvesting could potentially create a dry-season scenario where most seeds succumb to pre-dispersal predation, thereby adversely affecting the natural regeneration of Brazil nut trees," they wrote.

Seeds of hope

The researchers said that populations of two large rodent species were responsible for the dispersal of the Brazil nut tree seeds: agoutis and acuchis.

Up to 25 seeds, what we call Brazil nuts, are contained in the trees' fruit However, they added, only the agoutis were capable of gnawing through the hard, thick outer casing of the fruit and releasing the seeds (Brazil nuts).

Agoutis, which can weigh up to 6kg, are found throughout the same range as the Brazil nut trees in South America.

"The (trees) therefore rely almost entirely on these large terrestrial rodents for the release of their well-protected seeds," the team explained.

"Those seeds not consumed within the germination period (12-18 months) may germinate, and seeds may remain viable for at least six years."

Scatter-hoarding also benefits plants in a number of ways, such as transporting seeds away from the parent plants and increasing the probability of reaching a site more suitable for germination.

Dr Haugaasen explained that the team decided to carry out the study in order to build on the findings of a 2003 paper published in Science, which first identified the link between intensive harvesting and the lack of young Brazil nut trees.

Writing in the 2003 paper, researchers said: "Persistently harvested stands were characterised by larger (and presumably older) trees and few or no juveniles.

But, they observed: "Juveniles were most common in unharvested and lightly harvested stands."

However, Dr Haugaasen said, the people harvesting the nuts could unknowingly be contributing to the regeneration of the trees, as some nuts were accidentally dropped as they were carried out of the forest.

"We actually found seedlings along the path used by the collectors. However, this does not mean that they are all going to reach maturity because they are in (vulnerable) places."

But he warned that restricting nut collecting could prove to be counterproductive because the harvests were a key source of income for local communities.

"Alternative possibilities, such as managed planting of seedlings in natural gaps in the forest might be a better solution," he suggested.

Dr Haugaasen said that the next step for the researchers was to look at the "management implications" of their findings.

"We also need to know how the hunting of these rodents can effect the natural regeneration of these trees," he added.

"You can have a negative impact by reducing the number of these rodents.

"However, if you have a large number of seeds already buried by a rodent before it is shot, no-one else knows where those seeds are.

"So, you could arguably have a positive impact on regeneration."

Further studies on the ecology of Brazil nut trees are expected to be published in the coming 12 months

Australia shelves key emissions trading scheme

Mr Rudd has said climate change is "the moral challenge of our generation"

The Australian government has put plans for a flagship emissions trading scheme on hold until 2013 at the earliest.

The move comes after the scheme was rejected twice by the Senate, where Prime Minster Kevin Rudd's government does not have a majority.

Mr Rudd, who came to power promising tough climate action, blamed opposition obstruction and slow global progress on emissions cuts for the plan's delay.

Australia is one of the highest per capita carbon emitters in the world.

Australia has some of the highest per capita carbon emissions of developed nations.

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Mr Rudd had hoped the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) would cut Australia's carbon emissions by up to 25% from 2000 levels by 2020, by requiring industrial polluters to buy licences to emit carbon.

The scheme had been scheduled to begin in July 2011, but Mr Rudd said the government would now delay plans until the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

He said doing so would "provide the Australian government at the time with a better position to assess the level of global action on climate change".

The BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says the postponement is a major climbdown by the Rudd government, which reflects the changing politics of climate change in Australia.

Developed countries with highest CO2 emissions

Tonnes of C02 per capita, 2006
Luxembourg	25.81
USA	20.12
Australia	19.06
Canada	17.10
Finland	12.94
Czech Republic	12.57
Estonia	12.34
Ireland	11.63
Belgium	11.47
Russia	11.14
Denmark	10.77
Germany	10.52
Netherlands	10.46
Greece	10.26
Iceland	10.15
Japan	9.96
Austria	9.47
Norway	9.40
UK	9.15
Spain	8.87

SOURCE: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Ahead of the Copenhagen climate change conference, the prime minister looked set to fight - and win - this year's Australian election on the emissions trading issue, says our correspondent, but polls have pointed to an erosion of public support.

Mr Rudd had hoped to enact the CPRS into law before last year's Copenhagen climate summit.

But in December, shortly before the summit opened, the proposed scheme was rejected by the Senate for a second time.

The move came after the opposition Liberal party ousted its leader Malcolm Turnbull - who had pledged his backing for the measure - and replaced him with climate sceptic Tony Abbott.

Mr Rudd said the Liberal Party's decision to "backflip on its historical commitment to bring in a CPRS", coupled with a lack of global action on climate change, meant it was inevitable that the scheme would be delayed in Australia.

"It's very plain that the correct course of action is to extend the implementation date," he said.

'Moral challenge'

Despite the decision, the prime minister said his government remained committed to reducing greenhouse gases.

"Climate change remains a fundamental economic and environmental and moral challenge for all Australians, and for all peoples of the world. That just doesn't go away," he said.

Mr Rudd's critics will say that this exposes a familiar characteristic of his leadership: his reluctance to fight for causes when the polls suggest he might be in danger Read more from Nick Bryant

But Mr Abbott accused Mr Rudd of a lack of credibility over the policy reversal.

"It seems the government has dropped its policy to deal with climate change because it is frightened the public think that this really is just a great big new tax on everything," ABC News quoted him as saying.

"He's running away from it because he seems scared."

Mr Abbott has previously said it would be premature for Australia to adopt such a scheme ahead of other countries.

Some lawmakers had questioned the scientific case for global warming and said that the emissions trading scheme would damage Australia's economy.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has denied that the decision to lift UK flight restrictions was the result of pressure from the airline industry.

Ash cloud: Lord Adonis denies pressure to lift ban

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis: "We have done our best"

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has denied that the decision to lift UK flight restrictions was the result of pressure from the airline industry.

The ban on flights due to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland over the UK was removed at 2200 BST on Tuesday.

Lord Adonis said the move had been made after an assessment of how much ash in the atmosphere was safe for aircraft.

The Conservatives questioned why this had not been established earlier, and urged an inquiry into the "fiasco".

'Urgent issue'

Airlines and airports had been keen for the restrictions to be lifted, with several carriers - including British Airways - conducting test flights that they said demonstrated it was safe to fly.

On Monday, British Airways asked the European Union and the UK government for financial compensation for the disruption, saying the shutdown was costing it £15m-£20m a day.

UK airports operator BAA said the ban was costing it £5m-£6m a day.

Asked by presenter Jeremy Paxman on BBC Two's Newsnight programme about how much pressure the government had come under from the airlines, Lord Adonis said: "They have obviously wanted to be able to fly their planes - of course they have - but that has not been the issue at stake here.

"The issue at stake here has been the assessment of the safety authorities as to what is the safe way in which planes can fly when there is a presence of ash.

"The fact which has changed in the last week is we have had a volcanic eruption and having to assess safe levels of ash content in the atmosphere within which planes can fly has been an urgent issue which the safety authorities have had to deal with.

"That's been what's changed over the last five days - it's not been pressure from the industry."

'Let down'

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "This solution has been reached as a result of the close working between the government, the Civil Aviation Authority, airlines and the manufacturers, and will allow the thousands of UK citizens stranded abroad to return home to their families."

He added: "We will of course continue to monitor the situation closely. As we have said throughout safety is our primary concern."

But shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers said Labour's "misjudgement and mismanagement" had "badly let down" the travelling public and urged the prime minister to immediately announce a full inquiry into the "fiasco".

She added: "Six days into the crisis, we're suddenly told that there are actually levels of ash which are compatible with safe flying.

"The question angry passengers and airlines are already asking is why the government hadn't worked this out before the crisis occurred."

But Lord Adonis said: "The government has taken every measure we can, and at every stage. We have done everything we reasonably can to protect the travelling public."

Tolerance levels

Dame Deirdre Hutton, of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), said there had been detailed consultation with experts to reassess the tolerance of planes to the ash cloud.

The CAA said it was a "situation without precedent" and that decisions had been made based on "thorough gathering of data and analysis".

"The major barrier to resuming flights has been understanding tolerance levels of aircraft to ash," the CAA said.

"Manufacturers have now agreed increased tolerance levels in low ash density areas."

After the lifting of the restrictions, the first British Airways flight to touch down from Heathrow was a service already in the air from Vancouver, which landed shortly before 2200 BST.

The airline's chief executive Willie Walsh said he was pleased with the decision, but said it would take weeks to get back to normal levels of operation.

He said: "We're now at British Airways going to start the difficult task of getting our stranded customers back home. I think this is an airlift that is unprecedented but we will make every effort to get our people back home."

Mr Walsh said "lessons can be learned" and added: "There will be plenty of time for a post-mortem of what has happened over the last few days." He said parts of UK airspace could have been opened several days ago.

"My personal belief is that we could have safely continued operating for a period of time. I think there were occasions when the decision to close airspace could have been justified," he said.

Flights have been grounded across the UK and much of Europe since Thursday following the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull.

UK water use 'worsening global crisis'

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Climatic change will increase water stress in many places, the report says

The amount of water used to produce food and goods imported by developed countries is worsening water shortages in the developing world, a report says.

The report, focusing on the UK, says two-thirds of the water used to make UK imports is used outside its borders.

The Engineering the Future alliance of professional engineering bodies says this is unsustainable, given population growth and climate change.

It says countries such as the UK must help poorer nations curb water use.

"We must take account of how our water footprint is impacting on the rest of the world," said Professor Roger Falconer, director of the Hydro-Environmental Research Centre at Cardiff University and a member of the report's steering committee.

If the water crisis becomes critical, it will pose a serious threat to the UK's future development Professor Peter Guthrie

"If we are to prevent the 'perfect storm', urgent action is necessary."

The term perfect storm was used last year by the UK government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, to describe future shortages of energy, food and water.

Forecasts suggest that when the world's population soars beyond 8bn in 20 years time, the global demand for food and energy will jump by 50%, with the need for fresh water rising by 30%.

But developing countries are already using significant proportions of their water to grow food and produce goods for consumption in the West, the report says.

"The burgeoning demand from developed countries is putting severe pressure on areas that are already short of water," said Professor Peter Guthrie, head of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Cambridge University, who chaired the steering group.

WATER TRENDS How availability, use and needs are changing across the world In graphics

"If the water crisis becomes critical, it will pose a serious threat to the UK's future development because of the impact it would have on our access to vital resources."

Key to the report is the concept of "embedded water" - the water used to grow food and make things.

Embedded in a pint of beer, for example, is about 130 pints (74 litres) of water - the total amount needed to grow the ingredients and run all the processes that make the pint of beer.

A cup of coffee embeds about 140 litres (246 pints) of water, a cotton T-shirt about 2,000 litres, and a kilogram of steak 15,000 litres.

Using this methodology, UK consumers see only about 3% of the water usage they are responsible for.

The average UK consumer uses about 150 litres per day, the size of a large bath.

Ten times as much is embedded in the British-made goods bought by the average UK consumer; but that represents only about one-third of the total water embedded in all the average consumer's food and goods, with the remainder coming from imports.

The UK is not unique in this - the same pattern is seen in most developed countries.

FUTURE WATER STRESS Interactive map: Rising water stress in a changing world

The engineering institutions say it means nations such as the UK have a duty to help curb water use in the developing world, where about one billion people already do not have sufficient access to clean drinking water.

UK-funded aid projects should have water conservation as a central tenet, the report recommends, while companies should examine their supply chains and reduce the water used in them.

This could lead to difficult questions being asked, such as whether it is right for the UK to import beans and flowers from water-stressed countries such as Kenya.

While growing crops such as these uses water, selling them brings foreign exchange into poor nations.

In the West, the report suggests, concerns over water could eventually lead to goods carrying a label denoting their embedded water content, in the same way as electrical goods now sport information about their energy consumption.

The Engineering the Future alliance includes the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) and the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM).

The Icelandic eruption

Icelandic volcanic ash alert grounds UK flights

The Icelandic eruption - airport officials say the ash represents a very serious risk to aircraft

Airline passengers are facing massive disruption across the UK after an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in Iceland grounded planes.

In Scotland, all airports are shut and there is disruption at many others including Manchester, Liverpool, Stansted, Newcastle and Birmingham.

The Air Traffic Control Service (Nats) imposed restrictions after the Met Office warned ash could damage engines.

Passengers are being advised to contact their airlines prior to travel.

Experts have warned that the tiny particles of rock, glass and sand contained in the ash cloud would be sufficient to jam aircraft engines.

'Significant disruption'

Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports were shut as Nats said it was restricting flights "in accordance with international civil aviation policy".

The ash cloud disrupted all flights to and from Manchester with a similar picture at Newcastle airport where all arrivals were cancelled and all outbound flights either cancelled or subject to indefinite delay.

Liverpool's John Lennon airport suspended all flights until at least 1300BST.

Airports in Scotland were the first to suspend flights overnight

British Airways said it had cancelled all domestic flights for the whole of Thursday, which affected flights at London's Gatwick, Heathrow and City airports.

Birmingham airport warned of severe disruption with about 90% of flights cancelled, and there were problems reported at East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, Cardiff and Bristol.

Most flights were suspended at Belfast International Airport and George Best Belfast City Airport, with some in and out of Dublin airport also hit.

A Nats spokesman said: "The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre has issued a forecast that the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland will track over Europe tonight.

"Nats is working with Eurocontrol and our colleagues in Europe's other air navigation service providers to take the appropriate action to ensure safety in accordance with international aviation policy."

Engines shut

The European air safety body, Eurocontrol, said the cloud of ash had reached 55,000ft and was expected to move through northern UK and Scotland by 1300BST.

Brian Flynn, assistant head of operations of its central flow management unit, told the BBC: "As it moves toward the Netherlands and Belgium it will dissipate and lose intensity, like any weather phenomenon. But we don't know what the extent of it will be."

VOLCANIC ASH CLOUD The eruption in the Eyjafjallajoekull area is the second to occur in a month This eruption has released ash to significantly greater heights Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of rock and even glass, which can wreak havoc with machinery A 1982 BA flight unknowingly flew into an ash cloud, shutting down all four engines Animated guide: Volcanoes

Further south, five easyJet flights due to depart from Stansted airport in Essex were cancelled, along with all northbound flights from Southampton and Newquay airports.

Bournemouth airport grounded a flight to Dublin but said all other departures were on schedule.

Met Office forecaster Philip Avery said the ash could take several days to clear.

He said: "It is showing up on imagery at the moment, extending down as far as the Faroes but it looks as though the wind will drag it a good deal further south.

"Nats has good cause to be very cautious about this because in about 1982 a British Airways jumbo had the unnerving experience of having all four engines shut down as it flew through a plume of volcanic ash."

There was a nearly identical incident on 15 December 1989 when KLM Flight 867, a B747-400 from Amsterdam to Anchorage, Alaska, flew into the plume of the erupting Mount Redoubt, causing all four engines to fail.

Once the flight cleared the ash cloud, the crew was able to restart each engine and then make a safe landing at Anchorage, but the aircraft was substantially damaged.

The volcanic ash cloud reached about 55,000ft, Eurocontrol says

A BAA spokesman said: "Passengers intending to fly today are asked to contact their airline for further information and should expect disruption in the coming hours.

The Royal Air Force has confirmed it will maintain its search and rescue operations.

A spokesman said: "We will continue to provide full search and rescue cover, however we will consider all requests we get on a case by case basis.

"The ash is mainly affecting the air traffic control radar but we can fly in cloud and reduced visibility.

The eruption under a glacier in the Eyjafjallajoekull area of Iceland is the second in the country in less than a month.

A Nats spokesperson said the volcano was still erupting.

Japan annual whale hunt 'halved by activists'

By Roland Buerk BBC News, Tokyo

Anti-whaling activists aim to prevent the hunt from going ahead

Japan's whaling fleet has revealed how much anti-whaling activists disrupted the annual hunt off Antarctica.

The ships have returned to port with just over half as many whales - 507 - as they had set out to catch.

Whalers said they were angry, and blamed what they described as "violent interference" from the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Clashes at sea between Sea Shepherd and the whaling ships paralysed the hunt for 31 days.

The last ship of the whaling fleet to return home sailed into Tokyo bay, with much of the hunt's catch in her hold.

The whalers had set out late last year to kill nearly 1,000 whales in the waters off Antarctica, but they caught 506 minke whales and one fin whale.

It is the smallest catch for years.

One of the Sea Shepherd activists, Peter Bethune, is awaiting trial in Japan after boarding a harpoon ship and trying to perform a citizen's arrest on her captain.

Prosecutors have charged him with five crimes. If convicted he could go to prison.

Commercial whaling has been banned worldwide since 1986 but Japan justifies its annual hunt as scientific research.

Meat not used for study ends up in restaurants and shops

Gulf Stream 'is not slowing down'

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Data came from the global network of Argo floats in the oceans

The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.

Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.

A slow-down - dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow - is projected by some models of climate change.

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The stream is a key process in the climate of western Europe, bringing heat northwards from the tropics and keeping countries such as the UK 4-6C warmer than they would otherwise be.

It forms part of a larger movement of water, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is itself one component of the global thermohaline system of currents.

Between 2002 and 2009, the team says, there was no trend discernible - just a lot of variability on short timescales.

The Atlantic overturning circulation is still an important player in today's climate Josh Willis, Nasa

The satellite record going back to 1993 did suggest a small increase in flow, although the researchers cannot be sure it is significant.

"The changes we're seeing in overturning strength are probably part of a natural cycle," said Josh Willis from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

"The slight increase in overturning since 1993 coincides with a decades-long natural pattern of Atlantic heating and cooling."

Short measures

The first observations suggesting the circulation was slowing down emerged in 2005, in research from the UK's National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

Using an array of detectors across the Atlantic and comparing its readings against historical records, scientists suggested the volume of cold water returning southwards could have fallen by as much as 30% in half a century - a significant decline.

The warm surface water sinks in the Arctic and flows back southwards at the bottom of the ocean, driving the circulation.

However, later observations by the same team showed that the strength of the flow varied hugely on short timescales - from one season to the next, or even shorter.

But they have not found any clear trend since 2004.

The global thermohaline circulation takes warm and cold water across the oceans

Rapid relief

The NOC team now has a chain of instruments in place across the Atlantic, making measurements continuously.

"In four-and-a-half years of measurement, we have found there is a lot of variability, and we're working to explain it," said NOC's Harry Bryden.

The quantities of water involved are huge, varying between four million and 35 million tonnes of water per second.

The array is part of the UK-funded Rapid project, which aims to refine understanding of potentially large climate change impacts that could happen in short periods.

Professor Bryden's team calculates that their system is good enough to detect a long-term change in flow of about 20% - but it has not happened yet.

He believes the JPL approach - using satellite altimeters, instruments that can measure sea height precisely, and the Argo array of autonomous floating probes - could potentially add useful data to that coming from long-term on-site monitoring arrays.

But, he points out: "The method concentrates only on the upper [northward] flow - it doesn't give you much information on the returning flow southward."

Fantasy and reality

Driven by Hollywood, a popular image of a Gulf Stream slowdown shows a sudden catastrophic event driving snowstorms across the temperate lands of western Europe and eastern North America.

That has always been fantasy - as, said Josh Willis, is the idea that a slow-down would trigger another ice age.

"But the Atlantic overturning circulation is still an important player in today's climate," he added.

"Some have suggested cyclic changes in the overturning may be warming and cooling the whole North Atlantic over the course of several decades and affecting rainfall patterns across the US and Africa, and even the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic."

Its chief, Rajendra Pachauri, was talking about the need for an internal review before the UN announced this external one

There's little doubt, I think, that the forthcoming review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can make quite a lot of difference to the organisation itself.

(This is the review that was demanded last month by ministers, and whose terms of reference and operating agency the UN has just announced, entrusting the running of it to the Inter-Academy Council, an umbrella body for science academies independent of the UN.)

Many scientists who have served in the IPCC believe its 22-year-old shape is no longer fit for purpose, and have said so publically.

Its chief, Rajendra Pachauri, was talking about the need for an internal review before the UN announced this external one; and it is surely impossible that there is nothing that can be improved in the working practices of an organisation that was conceived before instantaneous electronic distribution of information became the norm and before climate science became the political battleground it is now.

A bigger question is whether the review can have much impact outside the organisation. Will governments be any keener to act on the recommendations of a reformed IPCC? Will the public find its currently rather impenetrable phraseology easier to decipher? Will it be more widely trusted?

It's possible to divide published opinions on the issue into three broad categories: those who are only concerned with getting the message across that man-made climate change is an over-riding threat requiring urgent action, those who are concerned about the issue but are more concerned by what they see as lack of rigour and transparency within the IPCC, and those who are convinced that global warming is a fraud anyway and the IPCC one of the lead swindlers.

Those in the first group are unlikely to be influenced by the review, even if it eventually contains damning passages.

Those in the third group are unlikely to be swayed by anything praiseworthy; in fact I have e-mails coming in right now that are already assuring me that the review will be a whitewash, which is I suppose a logical conclusion if your frame of reference is that everything about climate change is just a conspiracy.

It's the second group that intrigues me, including as it does some pretty smart and independent-minded people.

Most are yet to comment. One who has, Roger Pielke Jr, describes what we know about the review so far as a "good start", but has some words of caution as well. I'll be watching the blogosphere and the op-ed-o-sphere with interest over the next couple of days to see what other thoughts come up.

One issue that was raised at the UN news conference - who raised it I cannot tell, as I listened to the conference remotely in London - was how independent the scientists on the Inter-Academy Council's review panel will be from the scientists who contributed work to the IPCC in the first place.

It's a natural question to ask. There's clearly a chance that the first people you would think of to take part in such a panel would be the most eminent climate scientists of the day, and they're wholly likely to have been intimately involved with the IPCC at some juncture.

There's also the wider point that some of the institutions involved with the Inter-Academy Council, such as the UK's Royal Society, have taken a very public stance on climate change.

But to assume this will automatically cause problems for the review is, I think, to misunderstand its nature and purpose.

It is not a review of climate science - some would say it ought to be, but it isn't, it's a review of IPCC practice - and it will surely draw more interesting and meaningful conclusions through involving scientists working in completely different fields, with experiences of completely different collating organisations.

They do exist; medicine alone has many. One that provides an interesting comparison is the Cochrane Review process, which aims to provide something analogous to IPCC reports - regular assessments of the evidence base on its chosen subject - but works very differently.

Will the Inter-Academy Council choose to make use of expertise from fields apparently unrelated to climate science? We shall see - and that, perhaps, will be one of the factors that determines how meaningful and visionary the review turns out to be, and how it is eventually perceived.

Big business leaves big forest footprints

VIEWPOINT Andrew Mitchell

Consumers around the globe are not aware that they are "eating" rainforests, says Andrew Mitchell. In this week's Green Room, he explains how many every-day purchases are driving the destruction of the vital tropical ecosystems.

Burning tropical forests drives global warming faster than the world's entire transport sector; there will be no solution to climate change without stopping deforestation

When was the last time you had a "rainforest picnic"? Or even, perhaps, an "all-day Amazon breakfast"?

Next time you are in a supermarket picking up a chicken sandwich for lunch, or fancy tucking in to a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and bacon before setting off for work, spare a thought for the Amazon.

A new report by Forest Footprint Disclosure reveals for the first time how global business is driving rainforests to destruction in order to provide things for you and me to eat.

But it does also reveal what companies are doing to try to lighten their forest footprint. Sadly, however, the answer is: not much, at least not yet.

Consumers "eat" rainforests each day - in the form of beef-burgers, bacon and beauty products - but without knowing it.

The delivery mechanism is a global supply chain with its feet in the forests and its hands in the till.

Because of growing demand for beef, soy and palm oil, which are in much of what we consume, as well as timber and biofuels, rainforests are worth more cut down than standing up.

Supermarket sweep

Governments, which claim to own 70% of them, create prosperity for their nations through this process, but poor forest communities need their forests for energy and food.

The report shows that the EU is the largest importer of soy in the world, much of it coming from Brazil.

It also shows that after China, the EU is the biggest importer of palm oil in the world.

Soy provides cheap food to fatten our pigs and chickens, while palm oil is in everything from cakes and cookies, to that fine moisturiser you gently rubbed into your cheeks this morning.

I have become a bit of a bore in supermarkets, challenging my kids to hunt for soy lecithin or palm oil (often disguised as vegetable oil) on product labels. You should try it! The stuff is everywhere.

The gargantuan farms of Brazil's Mato Grosso State can boast 50 combines abreast at harvest time, marching across monoculture prairies where once the most diverse ecosystem on Earth stood, albeit in some cases many years ago.

Further north, thousands of square miles of rainforest natural capital is going up in smoke each year, often illegally, to provide pastureland for just one cow per hectare to supply beef hungry Brazilians or more prosperous mouths in China and India.

Many of the hides from these cattle then go into the designer trainers, handbags or luxury car upholstery that wealthy markets have such an appetite for.

Few Europeans know that their fine steak au poivre or choice after dinner mints might have an added expense on the other side of the world that unknown to them, is altering life on Earth.

None of this would matter but for three things. Firstly, evolution is being changed forever. Most of us, sadly, can live with that.

Secondly, burning tropical forests drives global warming faster than the world's entire transport sector; there will be no solution to climate change without stopping deforestation.

Finally, losing forests may undermine food, energy and climate security. Yet saving them could, according to UN special adviser Pavan Sukhdev's forthcoming review on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), reduce environmental costs by $3-5 trillion per year.

Oh yes, let us not forget the 1.4bn people, many of them the world's poorest, who depend on these forests for their survival and who cannot afford to lose them, even if we can.

Full disclosure?

So what can be done? The first thing is to encourage business to mind its "forest footprint".

The impact global business has on deforestation will be a key factor in halting deforestation in the future. No amount of hand-wringing in the UN climate talks will alter action on the ground unless the drivers of global deforestation are also tackled.

Whilst poverty is possibly the largest of these drivers, so is the way in which business drives the conversion of cheap forest land to feed their global commodity supply chains - all the way to you and me.

This is why we launched the Forest Footprint Disclosure project last year: to invite companies to first recognise their impact on forests and then disclose what they were doing about it.

Such a request might be ignored by giant businesses if it were not for the fact that investment managers, with at least $3.5 trillion of assets, also wanted to know and backed our disclosure request with their names.

Why? Because it is their money that may be at risk if the companies do not clean up their act.

In 2009, Amigos da Terra's report Time to Pay the Bill, and Greenpeace's Slaughtering the Amazon highlighted the cattle industry as a driver of climate change responsible for the bulk of Brazil's greenhouse gases through deforestation and methane emissions from 180 million cows.

This resulted in the withdrawal of a $60m loan from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation to Bertin, Brazil's largest exporter of beef.

In June 2009, Brazil's major supermarkets - Pao de Acucar, Wal-mart, and Carrefour - all announced they would no longer accept beef from ranches involved in deforestation.

In July, sportswear manufacturer Nike said it would not accept leather in its products from Brazil if it came from deforested areas.

And in October, JBS Friboi, Bertin, Mafrig and Minerva - the largest players in Brazil's cattle industry - all agreed to similar action.

Daniel Azeredo, a Federal Public Prosecutor in Para State, has recently filed legal actions totalling $1bn against 22 ranches and 13 meat-packing plants for non-compliance with federal laws governing deforestation.

'Extraordinary time'

The effects are rippling all the way up the supply chain - well, to you and me again.

Consumers and businesses can play their part by demanding that their suppliers know where their "Forest Risk Commodities" come from. But will they?

Evidence from certification schemes shows that consumers care but not enough to get their wallets out.

If business cannot secure a premium for the extra costs of producing the good stuff, why should they bother?

I believe, however, that we are at an extraordinary time in human history when all that could be about to change.

What all this is evidence of is a quickening step in a remarkable journey that will result in nothing less than the transformation of the 21st Century economy.

Curbing emissions from deforestation, which was the outsider in the UN negotiations just two years ago, has moved to become the front-runner. It is now widely recognised that forests offer the quickest, most cost-effective and largest means of curbing global emissions between now and 2030.

So, are we at a tipping point in history where this could actually happen?

Conservation will never out-compete commerce with a global population rising toward nine billion.

Feeding and fuelling our growing world is one of the greatest opportunities of the 21st century, but sending natural capital up in smoke and squandering ecosystems that support wealth creation in the process will, ultimately, be counterproductive.

Businesses that understand this will be the rising stars of the future. Our report provides some of the first insights into who the potential winners and losers may be, and which business are setting the pace today.

Investors will want to spot them