The Wind is Blowing

As part of my wider reading for my university personal statement I read an article from Geographical, the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, about the controversy surrounding wind turbines and was moved to write about the issue here.

Image: Symscape

Just to be clear, onshore wind farms are located on land, whereas offshore ones are found either in the sea or in freshwater.

Did you know? Onshore wind energy supplied just under 2% of the UK's total electricity in 2010, and by 2020 it's expected to produce 5.6GW, which, along with 2.7GW from offshore farms, could power 4.6 million homes.

Why Should We Protect (or Not) the Somerset Levels?

So this seems to be my first post on this site; better make it a good one then.

You may or may not know that the South West of England is experiencing the most severe series of rainstorms it has had in many years. It has caused many homes to be terribly damaged by the large volumes of water that has rained down on the land, and the boats have had to be used.

First, some geographical background, with a homemade diagram:

A Crude Representation of Air Streams in our World.

Notes about the diagram: I know the UK isn't that small, but otherwise it wouldn't work as well on the map. No offense has been meant by these quick drawings, and I am sorry if any has been caused. This is just as the caption says: a crude and NOT SCIENTIFIC representation of the current weather system.

To the explaining! Warm air is directed at North America, but that has collided with a cold air stream from the Arctic - now, one has to win, and at the moment the cold air is beating the warm stuff. So the warm air has to go somewhere, and due to many things, including the rotation of the earth (which goes to the right on the diagram), it is deflected towards Europe, into the path of our wonderful jet stream. This accelerates it, making it much more wonderful by adding even more rain and stormy weather, which occur when it reaches the land of the UK. That's the main reason why there have many so many storms in quick succession, making the ground saturated and more at risk to flooding.

Many coastal villages have been asked to evacuate, and on Monday, even after the majority of the storms, there were still 3 severe warnings in the South of England, which means there is a threat to life. Many people have had to be rescued as the roads and railways are impassable, and there have been many homes without power for days over the holidays.