Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Mean temperature for year was 10.09C, surpassing 2022 record, and 1,648.5 hours of sunshine were recorded 2025 was the UK’s warmest and sunniest year on record, the Met Office has confirmed. The UK’s three hottest years on record have now all been in this decade, which meteorologists say is proof of a rapidly changing climate. All of the top 10 warmest years have happened in the past two decades. Continue reading...

Bird organisations say more research on the species needed to control impact on other wildlife In the past 20 years, the soundscape in the ancient wild, rolling landscape of Richmond Park has been transformed. Once you would have heard the chirrup of the stonechat, the chirp of the greater spotted woodpecker or the song of the skylark. Today, the auditory power of one bird dominates. The bright green ring-necked parakeet increased 25-fold from 1994-2023 in the UK. They are still mainly based in the skies, parks, and woodlands around London and suburban areas in the south east, but in recent years they have made their way to northern cities including Manchester and Newcastle. Continue reading...

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Christine wanted to enjoy her retirement, but then the banks of a local brook burst and turned her and her neighbours’ lives upside-down When I visited Christine’s bungalow in Trowell, Nottinghamshire, and asked if I should take my shoes off, she joked: “I wouldn’t worry, I’ll be getting a new carpet soon enough when it floods again.” She’s got another good one about the time she, a 70-year-old great-grandmother, had to climb through her conservatory window because her front and back doors had been sealed shut by flood barriers. “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry,” she says. And there is a lot to cry about: mainly the fact that her home is unsellable due to multiple floods. In 2020, the brook that backs on to Christine’s home burst its banks and water poured into her house, as well as the homes of her neighbours Jackie, 67, and Rhona, 76. As we sit around a table drinking tea, they tell me about having to rip out their floorboards, skirting boards, kitchen cupboards and entire bathrooms. Doors had to be taken off their hinges and thrown into skips. Fridges, washing machines, furniture, all joined the pile. Continue reading...