Paris Agreement, COP 25, Emission Gaps and Projections December 2019

The Madrid climate discussions went the way of most such meetings with much talk and limited progress. Over 26,000 delegates (I see no estimate of their carbon footprint) pitched up to try to finalise the Paris Agreement rule book, including the vexed question of carbon caps and credits. One tends to despair when each country…

Southern Africa Dam Level Changes and Influences December 2019

I have noted in past blogs that good rainfall in areas feeding Cape Town's six main supply dams had alleviated the dire situation there. In 2019 although the winter rain diminished for a time there were better late season rains. By way of illustration the Cape Town Six levels decreased between 19 August and 21…

Highveld Rainy Season Onset 2019, Drought and Outlook

In Highveld Rainy Season Onset 1977 to 2017 I suggested that widespread perceptions of a later start to the Highveld rainy season, especially by farmers, were supported in a small way by my own rainfall data. Later data fully supports the trend, as Figure 1 indicates, and leaves the earlier trendline very much in place.…

Highveld October 2019 Weather

October is normally the first month of the summer rainy season to record good rains. This was emphatically not the case in 2019, with the 1 July to 31 October rainfall amounting to only 15 mm. As if that was not bad enough the full six months to 31 October only produced 16 mm, less…

Climate Action Tracker (CAT) Update of 19 September 2019

The CAT is produced by three independent scientific organisations funded by the ClimateWorks Foundation and the German Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) via the International Climate Initiative. It is a standard reference for global warming specialists. On 19 September they produced a special report (ie outside the normal update cycle) for…

Frozen British Pensions – Brexit

Previous blogs have speculated about the impact of Brexit on frozen pensions, specifically whether the treatment of the pensions of expats in the EU, be it a hard or soft exit, will cause parallels to be drawn with current frozen pensions. Some light was thrown on this on 1 September when the Dept of Work…

Highveld August 2019 Weather

Temperatures. The box and whisker chart below presents figures for Rynfield, Benoni, Gauteng S26 08 411 E028 20 609 Elevation 1644m. For details on how these charts are to be interpreted please see the Highveld Winter Temperatures 2019 blog. The trend is clearly not consistent. 2014 was particularly cool with night temperatures down to -3°…