Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Water temperatures are climbing the charts, high tides are swallowing the shoreline and vital parts of the food web that feed ocean diversity are disappearing On a picturesque autumn afternoon last week, the beaches of California’s Monterey Bay were teeming with life and death. A cadre of shorebirds charged and retreated in a synchronized dance with the raging surf. Nearby, the receding tides had deposited lifeless bundles of feathers and bone, tangled in piles of glistening kelp. Swollen sea lion carcasses, their teeth bared in a quiet grimace, dotted the sand as beach picnickers and dog walkers enjoyed the warm, cloudless day. Continue reading...

Heavy rain and strong winds have also caused disruption across British Columbia, Canada, over the last week Storm Charles has brought destructive weather to the Iberian peninsula this week, particularly in Portugal and the far south of Spain. Heavy rain and strong south-westerly winds arrived first in the Portuguese island of Madeira, before the system headed towards the mainland on 11 November. A wind gust of 84.5mph (136 km/h) was recorded at Funchal airport, alongside rainfall totals reaching 355mm (13.97in) in 12 hours. In Lisbon, 183 flights were cancelled on Wednesday, about a third of its normal daily traffic, while Madrid Barajas airport had 155 cancellations. After causing widespread flooding in Spain and Portugal, the system moved on a north-easterly track through southern France and then towards northern Italy. This resulted in significant flooding in parts of Cannes, some of which caused rock falls and led to the closure of roads along the French Riviera. The Italian weather service issued a red rainfall warning, its highest level, for the area extending from Tuscany to Venezia. Further heavy rain is expected to fall in Italy and the Balkans over the next few days, with the latest forecast models indicating an additional 100mm could accumulate widely, while totals close to 200mm are likely in more mountainous areas. Continue reading...

Debate over climate science, transition away from fossil fuels, electrification and climate finance can begin in earnest as world leaders leave UN summit Far away from the conference centre, Norway’s supreme court has declared the state’s decision to award three permits for oil and gasfields in the North Sea invalid, as it had not accounted for the harm caused by burning the fuels. The decision, hailed as a win by climate campaigners, does not automatically revoke the permits or demand an immediate shutdown of the fields, but will force the government to consider the global impacts of pollution before awarding licenses. It comes two days after the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Stør, told fellow leaders at Cop31 that “Norway will do its part” in a speech that did not mention the country’s ongoing expansion of oil and gas infrastructure. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Fossil fuels no longer dominant energy source, IEA leader says, as summit considers electrification pledge The world has left behind the age of coal, oil and gas and is now firmly in “the age of electricity”, the world’s leading energy economist has said. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said more than twice as much electricity generation would be added to the global economy in the next decade than in the last, as countries scramble to secure their energy supplies against fossil fuel price volatility and supply shocks, such as the Iran war. Continue reading...