News

Over the past week, the European Space Agency released data that provides a welcome positive in amidst the challenge of COVID-19. Data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite has shown a reduction in nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) over both Italy and China, as each country has brought in stringent measures to tackle the pandemic.

The State of the Climate Report 2019 has been released by the World Meteorological Organization, and it makes for sober reading.

The report confirms that 2019 was the second warmest year in the instrumental record. The global average temperature was 1.1 °C above estimated pre-industrial averages, second only to the record set in 2016.

The UN’s Climate Change Conference began on Monday in Madrid, Spain, under the Presidency of the Government of Chile. It will include the 25th Conference of Parties (COP25), the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and the 2nd session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. The aim of the meetings is to ensure that the various conventions and agreements are being implemented.

There are several online courses which you can take to learn more about weather and climate: on the FutureLearn platform, there is the RMetS/ University of Reading Come Rain or Shine introduction to weather, as well as the University of Exeter’s Climate Change: the Science course, both of which are running at the moment.

The Open University runs a couple of courses Watching the Weather (free) and Science: the Weather which has an associated fee. The COMET/ MetEd programme in the USA runs many online courses, some general, some very specific.

The clear up operation is continuing after Typhoon Hagibis hit Japan on 12th October with wind speeds up to 225 km/ hr and torrential rain, leaving at least 74 dead and tens of thousands of people displaced. In the town of Hakone, 939.5 mm of rain fell in just 24 hours.

The debate is planned to be held on Friday, 29th November. However, there is a risk that the event might be postponed to January/February, if the parliament requires access to the chamber.

The Society is delighted to be working together with the University of Reading on a Thames Water sponsored FutureLearn course, called “Come Rain or Shine”.  Recently the course was awarded the EMS Outreach and Communication Award 2018.

Met Office and Met Éireann, along with new partner KNMI, have today revealed the list of storm names for 2019-20.

First introduced by the Met Office and Met Éireann (the meteorological service in the Republic of Ireland) in 2015, the Name our Storms campaign has helped raise awareness of the potential impacts of severe weather in Britain and Ireland before it hits.  Now in its fifth year, Met Office and Met Éireann are joined by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), the Dutch national weather forecasting service.

Although there are natural causes of wildfires, such as lightning strikes, most of them are started by people. Because of high temperatures and dry conditions, they rapidly grow out of control. So far, this year has been exceptional in a number of locations across the world.