GIF from the Animation Factory
Geographical stories of interest from the newspapers. Get that clippings file started!
I always recommend it to my Year 12 and 13 students. Do they listen ?
"95% of geography teachers use news stories in the classroom"
2004
MAY
EU EXPANSION DAY on May 1st
10 news members joined the EU from today. Various papers with information about the new members of the EU. One article in the 'Observer' looked at the tourist possibilities of the new countries. Had a lot of visitors to my EU PAGE.
Drought in the Andes has meant that Lima, the capital of Peru has water rationing in place. (BBC NEWS site)
Minor population boom in 2003. More people born in the UK than at any time for 20 years - there has been a 4% rise in births: a total of 620 000. The average age of a first time mother is now 27.4 years. (The Times)
Apologies for lack of updates here, exam season is upon us... normal service will be resumed in JULY...
JUNE
James Screen: a former pupil of mine has recently won a prestigious award for his research into the effect of aircraft contrails on global warming. Read about it HERE.
The importance of Contrails
Condensation trails from aircraft ("contrails") are an increasingly common sight
over British skies, as civil air traffic continues to grow rapidly. These
man-made clouds form when the extra water vapour in the engine exhausts is
enough to kick-off cloud formation in air which would not otherwise form a
cloud. Because of the large number of microscopic particles of soot and
sulphuric acid also released by the engines, the cloud formed tends to have more
droplets than a natural cirrus cloud, and so appears brighter and whiter. Making
the atmosphere more cloudy more of the time can influence climate, by increasing
reflection of sunlight away from the Earth's surface (a climate-cooling effect)
and by trapping heat radiating upwards from the Earth and lower atmosphere (a
climate-warming effect). Which effect dominates will depend on many factors, but
one climate effect of contrails for which there is evidence is a reduction in
the daily range of temperatures (i.e., warmer nights, cooler days). Research
into contrails continues across the world using satellites, aircraft, and
ground-based observations
Currently reading 'Shopped' about the effect of supermarkets on our daily lives. Thought provoking stuff....
Good example of eutrophication, and also of biological invaders of ecosystems. Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela has become covered in DUCKWEED (also known as the lemna or water lentil) - a story is HERE, and also on the BBC NEWS site. It was featured with a tremendous image in The Guardian (12/06/04)
JULY
The Aral Sea having a major impact on the health of people in the surrounding area. An alarming article.
The poorest city in the UK is Glasgow. This has been developed by researchers in a 'Census atlas'.
A new COUNTRY CODE was introduced this week. If you go to the COUNTRYSIDE ACCESS website which has been set up, you can check out all the details. Aardman animations have provided a CREATURE COMFORTS style animation to introduce the new Country Code. It's a 5 Mb download, and runs to around 60 seconds but would make a good starter activity.
Excellent article in 'The Guardian': 'Cities' warmth reaches 6 miles out' - looks at the effect that urban areas have on the surrounding rural areas. They delay the onset of winter, and spring arrives earlier. Average temperatures are obviously higher than outside the city due to the well documented 'Heat Island' effect. Check out a report on the subject HERE. ('The Guardian' - 13/07/04) For more on the subject you can check out my GLOBAL WARMING page.
The end of the month saw a HEATWAVE: high temperatures and thundery conditions. At the same time, the MET OFFICE & Dept. of Health introduced a 4 stage HEATWAVE index: HEAT-HEALTH WATCH. They also reminded people of the vulnerable groups: the elderly and young children. The heat is a particular risk for those prone to strokes, as the blood thickens in hot weather and is more likely to form clots. The hot weather is due to high pressure from the Azores high, and a movement of the JET STREAM from its location where it brought decidedly dodgy weather during the middle part of July.
Another pit closes: Stillingfleet colliery in North Yorkshire. Few remaining now...
On holiday, so the local paper is the 'Western Morning News'. Story on renewable energy, with the announcement of plans for 12 299ft high at Shurton Bars, north of Bridgewater in Somerset. It will overlook Hinkley Point nuclear power station, and according to Your Energy would power around 20 000 homes. There were also plans to extend St. Breock Downs: an existing wind farm near Wadebridge.
Story also on Dr. Geoffrey Haggis who has written a report suggesting that global warming can be curbed by using existing resources more carefully. He suggests that wind power could only produce a 'trivial' amount of energy, and there is more potential in hydro power, power from waste, and photovoltaic (PV) panels on houses. ('Western Morning News', 31/07/04)
Caravans on the M5 heading south are to be limited to the left hand line in a trial scheme announced at the end of July for Naish Hill, S of the Avonmouth Bridge.
Another article on the Aral Sea in The Times.
AUGUST
El Nino could be on the way back this December. There are signs that it could be on the way back, and it's also apparently 'due'.
Finally took the plunge into the full version of Shockwave's PHOTOJAM software. Marvellous! Allows you to share the jams in various ways, including burning them to CD, and also putting them online. There's also the chance to add your own music while they are playing.
16th of August 1952 was the date of the Lynmouth flood. 52 years on, and Boscastle was in the headlines for a similar event: only this time, miraculously, there don't seem to have been any fatalities. The damage, and the rebuilding will continue for some time. Boscastle has a similar topography to Lymouth in that there are several small rivers funnelled down into the centre of the village. The day after the events at Boscastle, there were a surge of visitors to the FLOODING page of GeographyPages. We are often accused of being 'doom mongers' in the way that we collect and cut out newspaper articles on such events... and the newspapers and websites were full of stories for a couple of weeks after...
Just a week earlier, a flood passed through the Devon village of Beer, which I'd visited just a few weeks earlier. The village has a steep road going down to the beach, with a small stream running alongside the pavement as a picturesque feature. On this particular day though, floodwaters were 3 feet deep and gouged out a section of the pebble beach which had to be repaired.
The Weather forecast could soon use 3D gaming technology to make the information more digestible...
Article in the Independent on 25th August... featured part of a speech by Vanessa Lawrence: chief executive of the Ordnance Survey, at the International Geographical Congress in Glasgow. It has some interesting things to say about the value of the subject.
Interesting article on the effect of TIDAL LOADING on the UK. The weight of sea water apparently pushes down some parts of the country by as much as 4 inches every time the tide comes in. There is an increased weighting on the continental shelf, particularly on the SW peninsula. (The Sunday Times, 29/08/04)
