Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Most owners would consider installing aircon as heatwaves lead buyers to focus on ability to stay cool, Rightmove says Searches for homes for sale in the UK with air conditioning have more than doubled this summer as heatwaves push staying cool up the list of priorities for homebuyers, alongside nearness to good schools and transport links. In the week of the UK’s fifth heatwave, in which temperatures in parts of England hit 38C, the property website Rightmove said the heat was influencing how Britons thought about their homes, with more people paying attention to how comfortable a property would be during hotter weather. Continue reading...

Evacuation orders issued for 400,000 after flooding, landslide warnings and power outages in Chiba prefecture At least five people have died in eastern Japan after “unprecedented” heavy rain that left nearly 7,000 stranded at Tokyo’s Narita airport and forced thousands to take refuge in government buildings. The torrential rains hit Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, on Thursday night, triggering landslide warnings and power outages. Evacuation orders were issued for more than 400,000 people in Chiba and other areas, and about 45,000 homes lost power, as 115mm of rain fell hourly, approximately the same amount usually recorded for the whole month of August. Continue reading...

Cernavoda shutdown poses immediate problems for Moldova, which relies on Romanian power ​to cover its own electricity shortages Romania has been forced to shut down the last working ⁠reactor at its only nuclear plant after drought caused the Danube river to fall to record lows – a rare move that will immediately affect power supplies in neighbouring Moldova. Drought and record-low water levels have deepened fears of an energy crisis across Europe, which is facing a new summer heatwave. Continue reading...

Study of 56m-year-old leaves counters claims from Trump administration members of ‘benefits’ of fossil fuel pollution Adding huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is set to cause the Earth’s forests to wither and die rather than flourish, according to a new study that counters erroneous claims that fossil fuel pollution will green the planet. An analysis of fossilized leaf cells from a period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM), which occurred about 56m years ago, has helped reconstruct how the world’s forests responded when planet-heating gases were previously being released at a rapid rate. Continue reading...