Underground line to heat up London homes during winter

The sweltering temperatures on the tube’s Northern line will soon begin keeping homes in Islington, north London, cosy through the colder months, under a scheme to harness the heat from the underground.

A Northern line tube train coming into Kentish Town station.

By the end of the year the project will pipe heat from the underground into hundreds of homes and businesses that are part of a heating scheme in the borough.

The project is one of a growing number of schemes across the UK designed to warm homes using “waste heat” from factories, power plants, rivers and disused mine shafts.

The hunt for alternative sources of renewable heat has gained pace after the government’s pledge to ban gas-fired boilers from new-build homes from 2025.

Read the story from The Guardian by Jillian Ambrose - “Underground line to heat up London homes during winter.”

Victoria and SA brace for all-time temperature records as BOM warns 'nowhere is going to escape the heat’.

Emergency services are bracing for scorching conditions across South Australia and Victoria, with an expert warning that "nowhere is going to escape the heat" as sweltering temperatures threaten to break all-time records.

Record temperatures are expected across SA and Victoria tomorrow.

In South Australia, Ceduna reached its hottest day on record today with the mercury climbing to 48.4 degrees Celsius just before 3:00pm — half-a-degree hotter than the record set in 1990.

"South Australia is once again experiencing a severe heatwave," Jonathan Fischer, a Bureau of Meteorology emergency services meteorologist, said.

Read the ABC News story by Camron Sleesor, Stephanie Ferrier and Sean Wales - “Victoria and SA brace for all-time temperature records as BOM warns 'nowhere is going to escape the heat’.”

More Hot Days Are Coming With Climate Change. Our Choices Will Decide How Many

Summer still has a month to go, but extreme heat has been a major storyline through June and July. Sweltering temperatures have grounded planes, sparked wildfires and set records from coast-to-coast.

This report has a strong American bias, but it takes
 little imagination to give it an Australian slant.

These stories are becoming annual rites of passage as the world warms. And the number of hot days is projected to increase in the coming decades.

Climate Central has developed a new web-interactive tool that brings the reality of future heat to hometowns across the U.S.  Simply enter the name of your city, town or hamlet — or any place in the Lower 48 that piques your curiosity — to see how the number of days above summer temperature thresholds will change throughout the rest of the century. The interactive also shows how reducing greenhouse gas emissions can help reduce the heat.

Read research report by Climate Central - “More Hot Days Are Coming With Climate Change. Our Choices Will Decide How Many.”

Charts illustrate health threats from climate change

The dog days of summer were particularly dogged this year.

July clocked in as the hottest month on record, marking the midpoint of what is likely to be the hottest year on record. With sweltering temperatures came a litany of crummy climate news — floods in Louisiana, Zika in Miami, searing heat waves across the Northeast — with dire implications for human health.

Last year’s Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change warned that the carbon crisis could undo the last half-century of progress in public health. And yet, for many, it remains unclear how climate change could land them in the hospital. Just one in four Americans can identify the ways that rising temperatures threaten their health.

To clarify that link, Climate Nexus and the American Public Health Association developed a series of infographics that illustrate the connection between climate change and all manner of life-threatening illness. [Disclosure: Climate Nexus and Nexus Media are both sponsored projects of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.]

Let’s begin with air quality. Climate change is producing shorter winters and longer summers, extending allergy season. Warmer weather is also worsening pollution by fueling the formation of ozone. Heat and drought are setting the stage for wildfires, like the blaze recently seen in California, which produce smoke, threatening respiratory health.

Read the ThinkProgress story - “Four Infographics That Show How Climate Change Is Affecting Your Health.”

Climate changes doubles Europe's chances of heatwaves: Nature

O

ver much of Europe, the sweltering heatwave of late June and early July has barely subsided. But already, scientists have analysed the possible role of climate change, concluding that global warming made such an event at least twice as likely over much of the continent.

 In some cities, climate change has made comparable heatwaves four times more likely, they say.

The speedy study comes from a collaboration involving the US-based nonprofit environmental news organization Climate Central and an international team of climate researchers.

They posted results on 2 July based on the sweltering temperatures forecasted, and updated their work on 10 July using the previous week’s actual temperatures, with similar conclusions.

Read the Nature story - “Speedy study claims climate change doubled chances of European heatwave”.