Thoughts on current political and financial developments, travel, climate and the environment with a humorous twist where possible
In earlier blogs I have looked at the later onset of rains in the Highveld summer and subsequently at the trend to the rains ending a little later. The graph below pulls this together by comparing average monthly rainfall from 1977 to 1996 with that for 1997 to 2018. This illustrates the later shift of… Continue reading Highveld Rainy Season Shift
About 90% of international trade in goods is via shipping, involving over 100,000 commercial ships. The propulsion units rank among the world's most powerful machines (the Wartsila Sulzer RT-Flex 96 C has an output of approximately 80,000 KW or 108,900 BHP) yet few alternatives to fossil fuel burning have been widely introduced. On top of… Continue reading Shipping Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Possible Solutions
This blog will be updated from time to time until at least the end of the meeting. 6 December 2018 (the later updates are below) Given the developments leading up to this meeting I could only see that much horsetrading would be needed but with only a small chance that the big issues would be… Continue reading CoP24 Katowice Diary
Climate Action Tracker (CAT) produces summaries for various countries on their progress and commitments on limiting greenhouse gas emissions and is the product of three research organisations - Climate Analytics, NewClimate Institute and Ecofys. For this blog I have chosen my own South Africa as an example but other similar summaries are available for other… Continue reading Countries’ Progress on Limiting Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The latest climate assessment was released on 23 November in the form of Volume 2 of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. Volume 1 published in 2017 dealt with the foundational science while Volume 2 addresses the environmental and human consequences. President Trump has been quoted as commenting "No, no, I don't believe it" while at… Continue reading US National Climate Assessment 2018
Good winter rains in the Cape this year and summer rains in the rest of the region last season created an expectation that any water concerns were over for a while. However the increase in overall levels over the last year has not been too impressive at just 8 % points (with around 40% of… Continue reading Southern Africa Dam Levels November 2018
Rainfall was not completely typical of a Highveld season or of the trend I have recently been suggesting is the case. In particular: The rather low rainfall for January and February sandwiched between the high rainfall of December and March; The good rainfall for October which went against the trend of later onset of summer… Continue reading Highveld Weather 2017/18
