british

The UK is heating up

August 5, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

June and July have both seen multiple days with temperatures in the 90s in London, England. This is almost unheard of, but according to British scientists, record-breaking extreme weather has become the new norm in the UK.

Weather records show that the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago. The number of days with temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit above the average from 1961-1990 has doubled in the last 10 years. For days 14 degrees above average, the number has tripled, and for 18 degrees above average, it has quadrupled.

Apart from the higher temperatures, rain in the UK has become more intense. The number of months where counties receive at least double their average rainfall has risen by 50% in the past 20 years. Sea level around the UK is rising faster than the global average, worsening the impact of coastal flooding.

An estimated 600 people died as a result of the heatwave that hit England and Wales at the end of June. Scientists calculated that the extreme high temperatures were made 100 times more likely to have occurred as a result of climate warming.

The UK has some of the longest duration meteorological records in the world. Those records show that recent temperatures have far exceeded any in at least 300 years. The last three years were among the UK’s five hottest years on record.

Today’s record-breaking temperatures are likely to be average by 2050 and positively cool by 2100, according to scientists.

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‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK

Photo, posted February 4, 2018, courtesy of Hannes Flo via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The largest iceberg runs aground

April 10, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The largest iceberg in the world, which has been slowly drifting for nearly 5 years, has finally come to a halt. The iceberg – called the unexciting name A-23A – came into existence in 1986 when it broke off from another iceberg A-23 that had calved or torn off from Antarctica earlier that year. For decades, A-23A sat in the Weddell Sea, east of the Antarctic Peninsula. Then, in 2020, it came loose from the seafloor and began to move. By 2023, it finally left Antarctic Waters.

Late last year, it began spinning in place caught in an ocean current called a Taylor column. Finally, it headed for South Georgia, a British-owned island that is home to a couple dozen people and lots of seals and penguins. A-23A is now stuck on the continental shelf, about 50 miles from the island.

A-23A is around 1,300 square miles in area. By comparison, New York City is 300 square miles.

Four years ago, a large iceberg called A-68A also came to ground in the vicinity of South Georgia. It quickly broke apart and ultimately added 150 billion metric tons of fresh water to the ocean as well as various nutrients. A-23A is also likely to succumb to the warmer waters, winds, and currents it now encounters and will affect the flora and fauna in the area.

The climate is changing and is impacting how ice shelves melt. Calving and the creation of mammoth icebergs are a normal part of the lifecycle of polar ice sheets, but we are likely to see even more events like this in the future.

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World’s Largest Iceberg Runs Aground

Photo, posted January 29, 2011, courtesy of Drew Avery via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

An All-Electric Plane

November 14, 2017 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The British discount airline EasyJet recently announced a partnership with American company Wright Electric to develop an all-electric commercial airplane that they said could be flying within 10 years. The goal of the partnership is to develop aircraft with a maximum range of 335 miles, which is long enough for many of the European routes that EasyJet flies from its hub in England.