Frequency of severe flooding across Europe 'to double by 2050´: Pan-European fund solidarity fund will be needed.

The frequency of severe flooding across Europe is set to double by 2050 and over the same period there could be a nearly fivefold increase in the annual economic losses resulting from floods, a study has found.

Climate change and an increase in rainfall will account for about a third of the losses by mid-century, with the rest of the increase being due to more properties and infrastructure falling within flood risk areas, scientists said.
An analysis of how rainfall patterns are likely to change over the coming decades, and how river levels are set to breach existing flood defences, has found that flooding will increasingly become a pan-European problem that does not respect territorial or national borders, the researchers said.
If the rivers are flooding in Central Europe, they are likely to also be flooding Eastern European regions. There is a need to be prepared for larger stress in risk-financing mechanisms, such as the pan-European solidarity fund, a financial tool for financing disaster recovery in the European Union.
Read more in the corresponding source:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/frequency-of-severe-flooding-across-europe-to-double-by-2050-9163852.html 

Climate change is more certain than ever

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time and the indisputable warming of the world over the past century is largely the result of human activities, according to the two most august science bodies in Britain and the United States.

The speed of global warming is now 10 times faster than at the end of the last ice age, which represents the most rapid period of sustained temperature change on a global scale in history - and there is no end in sight if carbon emissions continue to increase, the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences have warned.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the highest for at least 800,000 years and 40 per cent higher than they were in the 19th century. They are set to increase even further without a binding global agreement on significant cuts in industrial emissions, the scientists said.
Average global surface temperatures have increased by 0.8C since 1900 and the last 30 years have been the warmest in 800 years. On the current carbon dioxide trajectory, global warming could increase further by between 2.6C and 4.8C by 2100, which would be about as big as the temperature difference between now and the last ice age, they said.
Read more at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/now-the-two-most-famous-scientific-institutions-in-britain-and-the-us-agree-climate-change-is-more-certain-than-ever-9155396.html 

What does Peking’s smog contain?

¿Que contiene la nube contaminante de Pekín?

Partículas < 2,5 micrometros (>500 microgramos/m3)- la recomendada por la OMS no debe superar los 25 microgramos por metro cubico.

CO, SO2, NOx y Ozono (O3)

Read more at:

http://ecologie.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/02/26/que-contient-vraiment-le-nuage-de-pollution-a-pekin/ 

European Parliament´s law to reduce CO2 emissions for new cars to 95 g/km by 2020.

New rules designed to achieve the CO2 emission reduction target of 95g/km for new cars by 2020 were endorsed by European Parliament on 25^th February 2014. The text retains this target, albeit with a one-year “phase-in” period in 2020. It also allows “super credits”, whereby the cleanest cars in each manufacturer’s range count for more than others, to apply from 2020 to 2022.

Read more at:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20140221IPR36626/html/Parliament-backs-law-to-cut-car-CO2-emissions 

Are wind farms changing Europe's climate? Extremely limited impact

The development of wind farms in Europe only has an extremely limited impact on the climate at the continental scale, and this will remain true until at least 2020. These are the main conclusions of a study carried out by researchers from CNRS, CEA and UVSQ[1], in collaboration with INERIS and ENEA, the Italian agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable development. These results were established using climate simulations that included the effect on the atmosphere of wind farms located in Europe, on the basis of a realistic scenario forecasting a two-fold increase in wind energy production by 2020, in accordance with European countries' commitments.

READ MORE:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140211121801.htm

Why do we insist on building on flood plains?

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/the-more-the-experts-warn-against-the-more-we-build-on-flood-plains-9101710.html