Britain faces four heatwaves and twice as many flash floods a year
In its most detailed long-term projection, the MET Office has predicted Britain will see four heatwaves a year and twice as many flash floods in 50 years.
It took one year for a supercomputer to calculate 'hyper-local' predictions (2.2km), which were analysed by top climate scientists.
Data will be used to help government prepare for these weather extremes, such as by building flood defences and helping farmers deal with dryer summers.
'What we've been able to do with the UK's future climate is to model the impacts of extremely localised events, like the one in Boscastle in August 2004, which saw one month’s rainfall fall in just two hours on the Cornish coastal village: you just can’t capture these in coarser projections,' said Dr Lizzie Kendon, a climate scientist at the Met Office specialising in extreme rainfall.
Attenborough to front biodiversity initiative
Sir David Attenborough will be the face of a new study exploring biodiversity loss and its impact on the ecomomy.
The project, led by the Cambridge university professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, comes as the government attempts to demonstrate its determination to fight the climate emergency.
Web trawl indicates abundant arachnids
Spiders are doing particularly well in Britain this year, due to the warm, wet summer, according to entomologists at the University of Gloucestershire.
The conditions have created an ideal environment for the smaller insects that spiders eat, allowing the eight-legged creatures to thrive.
The university team used 'Twitter mining' — by logging social media postings about spiders they built an ecological picture of the situation, with early indications suggesting this year's 'spider season' is busier than that of 2018.
On This Day — Lord of the Flies is published
William Golding's manuscript had been rejected by a raft of publishers before he sent it to Faber & Faber in 1953; they, too, rejected it initially, with the reader assigned to it not being impressed. But a freshly-arrived editor at the company, Charles Monteith, picked it out of the slush pile and, with a few tweaks, published it exactly 65 years ago, as Lord of the Flies.
A career was launched, and Golding would go on to write dozens of books, plays and other works, earning both a knighthood and a Nobel Prize as he did so.
A gorgeous weekend at one of Britain's favourite events
The Goodwood Revival is always a highlight of the calendar — and we've picked out some of the best images to give you a flavour of the weekend, whether you made it along or not.
And finally... RIP to the duck who acted as the Queen's tour guide
Sad news from Edinburgh, where Olive the duck has passed away at Gorgie City Farm.
Olive quacked her way to 15 minutes of fame in July this year when she gave the Queen a guided tour of the farm where she lived.
Olive, who often acted as a human and was even known to have hopped on to buses, died last week at the ripe old age of four. 'Never has a duck been so loved,' the farm said on social media. 'Sleep well, little Olive.'
1940s glamour, Goodwood's youngest racer and a psychelic Rolls-Royce: The best pictures from a sun-kissed weekend at the Goodwood Revival
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The brilliant tractor tribute to the NHS from a group of Warwickshire farmersPeople around Britain have been paying tribute to the efforts of our NHS workers at the time of the coronavirus pandemic — but few have been as creative and clever as this one.
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London's iconic red bus at risk and 6,000 year old chewing gum gives clues into our DNA historyCuts to industry subsidies and an increase in fares has left bus use at its lowest point ever, while DNA extracted from ancient 'chewing gum' allows scientists to decipher the genetic code of a Stone Age woman.
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90-million-year-old 'swimming dinosaur' skeleton found by dogs out walking in Somerset, and the nonchalant moths who don't bother fleeing enemiesA superbly intact dinosaur skeleton — described as being 'museum quality' — has been discovered on a beach in Somerset.
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Battle to ban 4x4s from the idyllic Lake District spot bequeathed by Beatrix Potter, eagle fights octopus and the 'snail's pace' climate talksThis morning we look at Little Langdale's fight for peace, reflect on the climate change talks in Madrid and discover the soundtrack for Brexit.
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Country Life Today: How Greta Thunberg shifted the dial on climate change — and the backlash shows just how muchThis morning we ponder whether Greta Thunberg is the Joan of Arc for the environmental movement, look at a key election — one from 19 years ago — and ponder the marvel of 'dad tidying'.
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Country Life Today: Great news for those who love our great country pubs — the years of decline are overThere is a great sign of health in the pub industry, we look back at Edward VIII's abdication message and fret about Greenland's melting ice.
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Country Life Today: Spain accused of being 'a deplorable choice' for UN climate conferenceA no-holds-barred assault on the Spanish fishing industry, Banksy raising awareness of the homeless and the woes of the Christmas jumper are in today's news round-up.
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Country Life Today: 'This is perhaps the ultimate wake-up call from the uncontrolled experiment humanity is unleashing on the world’s oceans'In today's round up, we examine why oxygen loss is putting oceans at risk, discover that action to cut air pollution brings almost immediate benefits to human health and find out which bird's arrival marks the start of winter in Gloucestershire.
