Un-seasonal

Blue sky makes all the difference

The sky was blue today after yet another storm hit the UK. This was the 9th storm this winter which is more than the average.

Rain approaching

Storms in the UK are certainly not international news, no twisters or snowmaggedons. Just rather dull and continuous rain, accompanied by howling winds. There hasn't even been thunder and lightening to add some excitement. Some areas have experienced flooding or downed power lines, yet it is theunusual pattern of weather that makes it news-worthy for me.

Very wet and muddy dog walks

It is an El Nino year, which has spread a mixed bag of extreme weather across the world. Even so, I can't just shrug it off and expect next year to be 'normal' again. Have we had a 'normal' year in the last decade? A year when rainfall or temperature  records haven't been broken?

I wish rainbows were the only thing coming from this coal-fired power station.

The climate change predictions for the UK (that I read a good few years ago now), indicated that winters would be milder and wetter, with much less frequency of snow. Summers would also be milder and wetter, except for in the Southeast. This describes 2015 pretty well. Last summer was warm, but can anybody remember a day that was actually hot, like sunbathing-on-the-beach hot? We kept wondering when summer would start. And this winter has been exceptionally mild so far, though very wet and stormy.

Are we moving to a 'season-less' climate in the UK, with far less definition between spring and summer or autumn and winter? That is not to say that every year will be like that, just that a trend may be emerging. I mean we can't expect to ignore all the danger signs about climate change and not have to face the consequences.

Lovely traditional stone terraced housing

The good news is that buildings in the UK are built to withstand this kind of weather, at least most of the dwellings are. The majority of dwellings are built of brick or stone, and feel solid and secure whilst the wind is howling round them. The style is for low-rise, compact and often terraced dwellings. Even hurricane strength winds only result in a few chimney pots being toppled, trees falling and power lines being damaged. Watch the scenes in other areas of the world and whole streets of homes get reduced to matchsticks.

Old brick built factory still looking amazing

This is also why we have some of the oldest housing stock - brick houses are expensive and slow to build (compared to timber) and as they last well and are expensive to replace, we keep them. Even more so with stone dwellings. My friend's cottage is over 300 years old, and the thick stone walls would have taken an enormous amount of energy to demolish.



Any excuse for more nice photos

Now I know that old houses get a bad name for not being energy efficient, but that is not entirely true. They tend to be small, so have less volume to heat, and if they are terraced they reduce heat loss by having less external wall area. Houses were built with good natural light in all rooms, before we had electricity and had a cellar and a pantry instead of a fridge or freezer.

 

That is not to say that older buildings don't feel cold and draughty, but it is worth bearing in mind that a new efficient double-glazed window provides no more insulation than an old solid brick wall. Modern buildings with vast glazed areas are really not a great idea if you wish to reduce your heating bills. You will find that there is more focus on building houses airtight these days, to reduce unwanted draughts, and adding additional insulation to any building will always improve the thermal comfort and efficiency.

Survived since 1483

Other bloggers have noticed changes in their weather patterns too, sometimes major scary events like the forest fires and drought in Tasmania that Jo mentioned, or even small signs of change such as still picking raspberries in November as Mrs Thrift noted. I would love to hear of any changes that you may have noticed, wherever you are. It may be plants flowering earlier or areas flooding that have never been flooded before. It all helps to build up a picture of how the climate is changing and prepare us for what might come next.

Keeping cool

It has been a hot week in the UK (at least by our standards) and for most of Europe it seems. I have been out doing energy surveys every day, and despite sweltering and having aching feet from all the walking, I love to see how buildings perform under peak conditions.

The UK has a relatively mild climate. Being surrounded by sea and benefiting from the warm Gulf Stream, means that our winters and summers are not as extreme as for mainland Europe. This is reflected in the design of our buildings. For instance French buildings traditionally have shutters. These aren't purely decorative, but have a functional purpose, to prevent solar gain. When the sun shines in through the window, it heats the building up like a greenhouse. The shutters on the outside of the house are more effective than blinds, because they stop the sun's rays before they get inside.

Typical French shuttered windows

Closing the shutters at night and then waking up to throw them open to the daylight is one of the delicious moments of staying in a French house. If you have tried this you will notice that just opening the shutters a slit will still bathe the room in daylight, and often keep most of the hot sun out. The strategy is to use the shutters in the daytime to prevent the suns ray from heating up the house. In addition the shutters can often be closed at night, but with the glass windows inside left open, so that the cooler night air can cool the building down and help to slow down the process of warming during the day.

Traditionally English townhouses were close together, providing a shady walkway

British buildings don't have shutters as a feature, because we don't get a lot of hot days and love it when we do. But it is not pleasant to work or live in a hot building, so here are some strategies that may help to keep buildings cooler and more comfortable.

Aptly named 'Thrift House' with the curtains drawn

1. Shut your blinds and curtains during the day to keep out the suns rays. This is especially important for South and West facing windows. If you are worried what your neighbours may think of your curtains being closed all day, then try using net curtains, as they are effective at blocking the sun too. By standing in front of a sunny window with the sun's rays on you, you can feel the difference when the curtains are shut. It won't stop the house warming up, but at least it will be less of a greenhouse. Canopies, overhanging roofs or trees can all be used externally to shade the building in summer too.

Glass greenhouses in central London ;-)

2. Keep windows closed if the air inside your home feels cooler than the air outside. It is an automatic reflex when you feel hot to open the windows, but if it is the hottest part of the day you could just be bringing in hot air from outside and making things more uncomfortable. Stand in the doorway and check first, because then you can feel whether the air outside is actually cooler or not.

3. Open your windows at night (if you can without inviting burglars) or early in the morning for an hour or two, to help flush out the warm air and allow the building fabric to cool down again. The bricks, concrete, tiles, fixtures and fittings all retain heat. so often you will find that when the air outside has cooled, the building still feels warm on the inside. You can use the cooler morning air to purge the heat, so that you start the day with a cool building. I throw open the windows at 6:30am, before everyone else is up, and once the stone tiles on my kitchen floor feel cold again, I shut my windows against the rising temperature outside. This helps the house to stay cooler for longer.

The majority of dwellings in the UK are constructed with brick, stone or concrete and these materials are all good for holding heat or coolth. Lightweight timber constructions tend to heat up a lot quicker and cool down faster too, so you may find that point 3 doesn't help much. You can try incorporating some more heavyweight materials in a lightweight house, by adding stone tiles to floors.

4. Every appliance that is switched on, from a light to a mobile phone charger, will be kicking out waste heat, into your lovely cool building, so make sure that everything possible is switched off. Fridges and freezers may be keeping the food cool, but in doing so they kick out a lot of heat from the coils at the back, which is adding to the heat in your house. The higher the air temperature the harder they have to work and the more heat is emitted, so try not to open them unnecessarily. You could also try using timers to run dishwashers or breadmakers in the early hours of the morning when it is cooler (unless you have PV panels and want to make use of the solar energy).

Landline phone that only works when it is plugged in

Incidentally, you are also kicking out waste heat energy that is created when you breath or move. Only an average 100W if you are resting but that increases to 250W if you are dancing around. Save the workout or physical housework for the mornings or late evening, when the temperature has dropped, to avoid overheating yourself and your house.

5. If you get to the point where it is too hot inside and you need to get a breeze going to help cool you down, then remember to get a crossflow of air. This means trying to open windows or rooflights on at least 2 faces of the building, with an open flow between them. Heat tends to rise, so it will gather at high points. Opening a rooflight or upstairs window will allow the hottest air to escape, whilst opening a window on a lower level will draw in cooler air to replace it. I have seen lots of hot offices this week where the office windows are open, but the office door is kept shut for privacy. This means that the air cannot flow across the building, so the occupants don't benefit from getting a breeze from their windows.

6. Putting a fan near your window can help to draw in fresh air from outside, but if the air outside is hot already then it makes more sense to aim the fan at you. A fan blows air across your body, encouraging the heat to transfer from your hot skin to the marginally cooler air. Hence it makes you feel cooler.

Trees for company

7. Have you ever noticed that the air around trees feels cooler? This is because they act like an evaporative cooler. Their roots suck moisture from the soil and when the sun shines on the leaves the water evaporates. This process uses heat energy from the surrounding air and works faster on a hotter day, leaving cooler air around the trees. Planting trees and shrubs near windows and in courtyards can help to keep the air around the building cooler (as well as providing some shading). A fountain works in a similar manner and was why they were popular in Roman courtyards.

Stone house surrounded by trees for shade and cooling

8. Insulation in lofts and walls helps to protect buildings from the heat, as they are another layer that the heat needs to pass through. Insulation helps to make the building feel more comfortable in the summer and winter, with the added benefit of leading to reduced energy bills.

9. Hot air rises, so if you are having trouble sleeping in your bedroom upstairs, then camp out on the ground floor or even in the basement if you have one. This will help you stay cool and get a good nights rest.

10. I heard on the radio today (for the first time) an advertisement for air-conditioning for homes and it made me groan. Air-conditioning is expensive and uses a lot of electricity to provide you with artificial cooling, so please try some of the cheap and easy methods to stay cool first. If you are a 'battery-farmed' office worker, in a large open plan office with only a couple of square metres of space, then the chances are that you will have cooling provided, and on a hot day it will be working flat out. If you can, take this opportunity to request to work from home. The less bodies in the office and computers in use, the less heat is being produced. This will save energy, reduce the load on the air-conditioning and help everyone to stay cooler.

Remember to always switch air-conditioning off in an empty room and to keep windows shut whilst it is in use, otherwise your expensive chilled air will be escaping. How many of you have walked past an open shop door and felt the rush of cooled air coming from within?

You may already do all of these things, but hopefully someone may find the odd tip helpful. Hope you have a lovely sunny summer where you are, with a nice cool house to retreat into when it gets too hot :-)

Selective news

I like reading the news on the internet, because it lets you pick and choose the most interesting stories, rather than watching half an hour of what someone else dictates as the 'top' stories. I am very selective, having no interest in celebrities or gossip, or the tit-for-tat that spews from the mouths of our politicians - glancing at a political headline is more than sufficient. Whereas some stories really grab my attention, and for a long while the weather related ones were some of them.

The BBC news site, my channel of choice purely because it doesn't have adverts, used to have a page devoted to weather news. I found it when I was doing a presentation on climate change and wanted some recent examples of extreme weather events. You could guarantee that there would be a flood or drought causing death and destruction virtually every single day, that would barely ever make it into the 'top stories'. You can see my 'weather scrapbook' summary for 2010 below. How many of those do you remember seeing on the news?

• January saw significant widespread snowfalls across the UK. Not quite the 17.8 inches of snow that fell in Washington D.C. in February, which was their snowiest winter ever. Even Miami saw sub-zero temperatures for the first time in 20 years.
• 125 deaths were reported from the severe cold in Northern India in early January.
• Heavy thunderstorms and flooding caused 10 fatalities in Egypt in January.
• Severe droughts hit southern and southwestern regions of China over the first part of the year, affecting 6.1 million hectares of farmland and leaving 18 million people short of drinking water.
• The worst floods in a decade also swept through parts of China with more than 3,100 dying and included a devastating mudslide which left 1,471 people dead.
• In May Tennessee saw epic floods killing 31 people in all and breaking the monthly record by the 2^nd day of the month.
• Cyclone Phet killed 24 people in Oman in June.
• Devastating floods hit Pakistan in July and by August a fifth of the country was submerged. 20 million people affected and nearly 2,000 deaths.
• July also saw a heatwave in Russia, the hottest since records began. A month of temperatures above 30 Deg. C also led to a severe drought and raging wildfires. Death toll is estimated at 50,000 from heat and air pollution. Crops were also badly hit and all exports of wheat have been stopped.
• The UK had its wettest July ever recorded and flooding hit.
• The Amazon rainforest suffered from an “exceptional” drought the worst in 108 years of records with entire stretches of river drying up completely.
• November brought snow to the UK and throughout much of Europe and North America severe cold and heavy early snowfalls occurred. The Arctic however was unusually warm.
• The Hurricane season saw 19 named storms, 12 hurricanes and 5 intense hurricanes, coming in 2^nd place for the most hurricanes in a season after 2005. Luckily many of these did not make landfall.
• 2010 was also the second hottest year globally on record, after 2005.
• 19 countries set new records for the highest temperature in 2010, and one country set a record for the lowest temperature.

Since then it became harder and harder to find the weather-related stories on the BBC, and now I have given up looking for them. These events haven't just stopped happening, but whether through lack of funds, lack of interest or ulterior motives, far less are being reported.

It is becoming more and more obvious, that the BBC offers a tainted view of world affairs. Just as they are selective with climate/ weather related stories, they are selective in other areas too. So I now read RT news site as well, the Russian news channel which often has news from a different perspective than the BBC. (Plus it doesn't feature the leering face of David Cameron or his cronies quite so often.)

Mostly RT has the same stories, but there are differences. For instance regarding Eastern Ukraine the BBC will always refer to 'pro-Russian rebels' or 'Russian-backed separatists'. You can see this in todays report on the shelling of Mariupol where blame for the attack is immediately assigned to the rebels, who are then reported to deny this. The equivalent report from RT refers to the 'East Ukraine militia' in the text (although the initial photo uses 'pro-Russian rebels' in its description, though the image is from Reuters). The BBC give the impression they are showing the rebels' side of the story, by saying that the rebels deny the attack. However the RT report goes further and points out that the militias stronghold is 110km away and the militia are quoted as saying they have no heavy artillery within range of Mariupol.

The government in Kiev must know who attacked Mariupol. Either the government issued the orders themselves or they didn't and it was the rebels/ militia. But firing on civilians is an international offence, and they are hardly likely to incriminate themselves, so can we trust what they say? The same applies to the rebels. That is why I would expect there to be investigative journalists coming up with proof and interviewing witnesses, but when it comes to the shenanigans in Ukraine there really seems to be very little based on actual evidence and a lot based on what the different sides say. Our best hope may be from the OSCE but little seems to be reported from them either in the media. Gathering evidence is clearly a frustratingly slow process.

To me it feels like the invasion of Iraq pantomime all over again. "You have weapons of mass destruction!" says the US. "Oh no we don't!" say the Iraqis. "Oh yes you do!"  "Oh no we don't!"..... The trouble is that the truth didn't come out until after we went to war and half a million people died. Then it just became a big joke to some people, but to me it seems like an apology is due.

That is why I am interested in knowing the truth. The mainstream media just aren't providing that any more, and I would encourage you to question everything and share your doubts, while we still can. Do we really want to be blindly misled into another war?

...............................................................................................

Well I wrote the paragraphs above this morning and since then both the news articles I quoted have developed further. The BBC are saying that Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a rebel leader, has launched an offensive against the city port of Mariupol and takes responsibility for the rocket attacks, with the Ukrainian Prime Minister accusing Russia of breaching the Minsk agreements. Whereas RT are quoting Aleksandr Zakharchenko as saying that since it was the Ukrainian government who attacked Mariupol, they are launching an attack on the government positions to the East of Mariupol. And so the pantomime continues. Oh no it doesn't! Oh yes it does........... :-(