Take. A. Charles an idea on the B.B.C. Well the show with me Paul Hodes another speed and extent of current global warming exceeds any similar event in the past at least in the past 2000 years that's according to researchers who say that even the Little Ice Age doesn't compare what's been going on over the last century Well I'm delighted to say Mark Muslim is Professor of climatology at the University College London Andy's with us now how are you Mark I'm fine thank you how are you very well thank you know this is not your city but obviously a professor of climatology this is very much your area of expertise so I'm delighted you can come on and talk about this let's start though with the Little Ice Age which we speak about fairly often on the where the show just reminders as to what went on in the 1516 hundreds so the Little Ice Age a true walking temperature that we see mainly in northern Europe and Eastern USA are. Real impacts on how people were farming and living and it's really put into the psychic. Because the wonderful paintings of ice on the Thames and things like that so this was not swat some climate skeptic. Seemed to suggest that this little ice age which coincided with a period of very very quiet activity on the sun called a more minimum this was not a global thing this was much more regional Well that's the importance of this study so they had $700.00 records of climate cross the world and they looked at this and they realized that the Little Ice Age was really a regional event mainly in the North Atlantic region and same with the medieval warm period we hear about and actually over the last 2000 years all the climate events we see are highly regional The only time that we see a global change whereby everything is changing in the same way is over the last 150 years with climate change and if we look back at one of the other famous periods in our climate has for the Roman Warm Period and which was very important to the Romans because the textbook suggests that this helped them expand their empire just tell us a little bit about what kind of warmth we're talking about compared with the warming we're seeing now so in the Roman period you're only seeing maybe about a degree warming but actually what's interesting is that it was a wetter period of time as well and actually it's not wants in the Mediterranean you really want it's a bit more moisture a bit more rain for Therefore you can grow crops and therefore allows your empire based on agriculture like the Romans were to actually have enough food to build and actually support and expanding army so it's the combination of slightly warmer weather and slightly wetter weather during the Roman period helped them expand and that period of warmth and high rainfall again was this just a regional thing across Europe Oh yes we see these changes again in the North Atlantic region we are. Very influenced by what's happening in the North Atlantic Ocean and how that ocean circulation is changing and that changes where the doom tracks come across Europe those wonderful depression zones that we get which give us that wonderful where dry weather the English love but again if you move up and down you actually change where those storms are where the wet weather actually comes to and from and therefore that's what's varying now current levels of temperatures are unprecedented on instrumental record what what does this study over the last 2000 years tell you as a climate scientist how does the warming differ how does it compare with these previous periods in our climatological history Well I think it's and nail in the coffin for the climate change science deniers because what it says is all these other little regional changes like the Medieval Warm Period Little Ice Age were highly regional They only affected a small part of the planet and actually over the last 2000 years the only time the temperature of the planet changes in the same direction everywhere is in the last 150 years and this is because of cause of greenhouse gases with putting them into the atmosphere and the whole planet is warming up now because it's not warming up all at the same rate the average is about one degree for the whole planet but you find that places like the Arctic and Antarctic a warming at twice that late were just suffered from some quite serious flooding here in North Yorkshire as people listen to this over the weekend and I was on look north on Wednesday with some you know quite a sunny jim rainfall figures lying Thwaite having a 132 millimeters of rain in 6 hours which was comparable with the rainfall that Boston. Colm wall experienced in 2004 as a climate scientists is that any surprise to you Do you think this is the type of thing that we could look forward to more often in future this is one of the things that climatologists have been warning about because when you put more energy into the system in the climate system you're making it more dynamic also because it's warmer. More water into the atmosphere and so therefore it holds more moisture and the problem is that these short sharp really intense rainfall events are becoming more common we saw these with huge floods in 20101314 these floods are becoming much more common the problem is they're incredibly difficult to predict Well Professor Mark Maslin now we're delighted to have you on the show a fascinating subject as ever thanks so much for joining us pleasure Professor Mark muzzling climatology experts at University College London. December. OK Vampire Weekend on the B.B.C. Weather show with me Paul Hudson now we've had some exceptionally heavy rainfall this week we'll talk about that very shortly and it was obviously very accurately forecast if I may say so my self but we're moving on to potentially of course all winter it's just round the corner and of course we now call storms when they reach a certain criteria by names and it's that time of the year again when the Met Office and the Irish Met Office are running a campaign to try and find out what the names will be well I'm delighted to say my ex colleague from Leeds where the sons of Kevin Wadsworth who he's now get this regional contingency advisor at the Met Office and he's joining us now from New Castle how you Kevin undergird call on Carlos story last night shift at least Weather Center Saturday night shift I think we spent about 7 hours embed not together Mom and Dad but you know that was the way here that the shift worked but many happy times at least where the center. Used to go to what was called having. Goodness knows but probably just forgot how. It's OK now bank said tell us. A bit more about naming snow you know what do we need to do to name these storms OK I will this is a city where the Met Office partnering with Letterman and were naming storms as they say we're going to. Send in their ideas and stormy look stone face will no doubt make you on the list of. The surprises our next all this but people can go online so they match up with social media States and give circular suggestions and we will narrow the list down to something reasonably sensible and well form the basis busy of the coming season Stone Aimes is a sec criteria which than triggers the match office to name these storms is based on the special extant of the storm and the wind speed for example. Of this one quite a lot really boils down to the impacts that are going to be created by the storm systems. So people are aware hopefully they were an assist is rising now that we use an impact based warning system in the area so that means that we base our weather warnings on most of what's exactly the wind speed of forecast or exactly the rainfall scorecards but the impacts are going to come from us and thus varies from some one time of year to another sort of wind shear in the time of year when the trees have leaves on can cause much more impact than if you get the same ones terms other terms of years so we base it on what the impacts are going to be enough for expecting a medium or high impact weather then that has the potential to give rise to a number of red weather warning that's one of the team name in the storm system and don't really matter too much what size of an area that it covers but generally these things do cover a large part of the case the very nature traffic on the March now these storms are obviously very different creatures compared with the storms that we've just had this week across many parts of the North of England I was up at a place near a reef in North Yorkshire on Wednesday of this week. And lying Thwaite is not official maps of the station however it does seem to fit in with other observations of you know the big local network of you know really quite accurate rain gauges that the Met Office don't use but they do refer to and one that caught my eye was lying Thwaite near rig 132 millimeters in a 6 hour period Well what do you make of not having nothing extraordinary isn't it it is the latest figures are within certainly within the realms of possibility that social sites and Muslims are not in the place called our whole town which is just a Northwest a great record of the mind blowing soldiers whilst they were approaching 100 millimeters in a 3 hour period in such an alcove town recorded 96.3 millimeters in just a blur into context that's about 6 weeks worth of rainfall so that site fall in a space of 3 hours what about Nanami the Marlins figures that your mom recorded in a 3 hour period 80.2 millimeters and over the course of the day 85.3 most of it fell within a 2 or 3 hour period so that particular short spell of rainfall that was probably sad to say was just as historic ocean's 6 but 6 weeks rainfall of a Muslim town is now in 3 hours I mean it's hardly surprising I mean I drove. On Wednesday and there were just it's just taken X. Lengths of Stonewall out that have been there for 300 years Absolutely and they started and you say. Wow several you know once in every 700 years or less that would be the expectation and cause climate change is just an expectation of the next confidence search into a past and so it's an it's difficult to say just how often a sort of a sense of country as we move forward and there is a trend in place there and it kind of fits in to what the scientists at the Met Office and you know elsewhere been suggesting make. And that we need to take into account more often well Kevin it's been a fantasy to talk to you. Many years to retirement now Kevin. Said it so well don't forget to invite me. When well. I would expect nothing else from you Kevin thank you so much for joining. Us on. The Met Office. The Hudson with a show from the feet. One and a half 1000000000 trees are needed by 2050 to tackle climate change that's according to experts who say that planting trees is part of the solution of getting carbon dioxide under control John Everett's from the National Forest Ses there are many benefits from expanding our woodlands they're one of the best most cost effective responses to climate change trees give us not just sucking up carbon but they also provide wildlife benefits they provide people benefits access they deal with pollution they help to store up water so all these other wonderful benefits make it really cost effective to plant more trees well in a moment I'll be talking to Karen bacon from Leeds University Karen has studied trees at Howard house and their value to the environment but 1st let's talk to Nick Phillips head of conservation policy at the Woodland Trust How are you Nick Hello Very good thank you yeah well thanks so much for joining us now the government announced a new scheme this week 10000000 pounds 413-0000 urban trees in towns and cities was the idea behind that just give us a bit more detail more urban trees can help us with a variety of different things so they've been shown to help for example with air quality and they're really important in reducing flooding and they have actually helped cool our cities as well as sucking up carbon dioxide and that actually play overall helping us deal with future hotter summers at the same time half 1000000000 trees by 2050 to tackle climate change worldwide how realistic is that so you're the so there's no doubt that you know it is going to be challenging so particularly in the U.K. That the levels of tree planting across England while certainly being have been quite low in recent years it is going to cost money but I think the really important thing is if we get this right you know by expanding our the right trees in the wipe. He says they can not only help us tackle the climate crisis but also we could have a big crisis in terms of wildlife declines in the U.K. And particularly. Declines So when you factor that in this actually is a very low cost way of delivering 2 really big global challenges now it's quite a challenge 1st of all of the top of my head I'm thinking where are we going to put all these trees is there enough space to plant all these trees I think that the the real important solution is we need trees in a whole range of different contexts so for example we need trees and are open areas from a farm in perspective expanding our trees in our hedge rows can be really important not only for things like wildlife and climate but also from the farmers' own perspective so for example Head roads have been shown to help of reducing soil erosion from wind so there are ways we can weave woods and forests for up the countryside and our urban areas so they deliver for society and also those who own the land as well will obtain more jobs I mean how will these trees be managed we are working with a variety of different landowners and farmers schools and individuals across the country I want example to illustrate in terms of jobs so we're working at the moment a really exciting project called The Great Northern port direct forest project and this will the ambition is for 50000000 trees in and around the cities of Liverpool Manchester Leeds Sheffield and whole and as well as you know doing the climate change helping fight climate change and the benefits of beneficial for wildlife they can also provide a whole range of jobs both in forestry in tourism and Recreation Phillips thanks so much for your time that's Nick Phillips from the Woodland Trust we're now going to talk to Karen Bacon was a plant ecologist from the school of geography at the University of Leeds so how are you Karen good thanks for coming in to see as leisure you've worked on a project at Howard house beautiful park the world I used the kids there all the time living in Shadwell to study the importance of trees. The environment and the economy what did you find yes so the kind of the big headline message from that study is that the trees in the Harewood House the estate are worth approximately 29000000 in terms of the benefits that they provide to the estate so everything from carbon capture and storage through to runoff prevention pollution removal so that's kind of the big headline and what we did was we looked at trees in the kind of 2 extremes of the type of Harbor Tunnel they have there so the big open Parkland where you find much bigger older trees and then one of the more planted gardens where you have a right of different species because both of these are 2 very important things when we think about how trees can be of benefit one is that more biodiversity is obviously something that that we want to encourage and can be beneficial to using the resources in an environment more effectively and therefore kind of presenting more of these carbon storage and run off benefits but then one of the other aspects is the bigger older trees particularly things like oak they store so much more carbon So for example you could have a big mature oak tree and if you replace that with 3 small trees it would take 25 years for them to be able to match that the carbon storage and other ecosystem service benefits of that big old tree one of the really interesting things that we found was that hair would because it's one of these kind of stately homes that these relatively unique human mediated environments where the trees are kept for so long and that they're kind of able to grow to their kind of almost their maximum potential and we found that hair would actually has far more of these really big old trees with this great carbon storage capacity. Than places like London or other big cities and was happening in Leeds in New York in general and so I think Leeds is actually really good. In terms of trying to understand and value our trees the university leaf group has just published a report yesterday which shows that all of the 1400 trees on the campus we've got 130 species and they together are estimated to store $540.00 tons of carbon so it's almost 2000 tons of C O 2 and they're basically all of those trees are the equivalent of a carbon footprint about $180.00 people so the trees in the university are doing a really good job of kind of contributing to carbon storage within the city more widely in Yorkshire where we have things like the woodland restoration program and they're doing really good job of trying to engage with landowners and trying to encourage people to see the benefits to them and to kind of bringing in more native woodland I think they've funded the restoration of that of 1000 hectares of new woodland already on those plans and to do more as well so actually I think Leeds in Yorkshire You can always do more but I think we're doing a pretty good job at the moment now they have the rest of the world has some huge initiative injuries Africa or India and Pakistan have been punching millions of trees yes which has gone unnoticed in the media I have been really surprised that the story about Ethiopia which in fairness I did see on the B.B.C. But it's that it's not bigger news they planted 350000000 trees and one day that's also incredible yet this is all well off the back of the powers climate agreement and yes 1015 yeah. Do we need to game a little bit in the U.K. Yes I think we do I think that there are wonderful plans like the northern forest idea unlike the work that has been done locally here in Yorkshire but I think this is an area where there is actually capacity for the United Kingdom to act in a real leadership role because we do have the experts and we. Trust I think in this country to really kind of capture that and if we had some political will to do. Really actually be world leaders in promoting this kind of a far station on other techniques to talk about climate change welcome and thank you so much for joining us thank you. To colleges from the school of geography at the University of Leeds. To come. Out still. I'm going. With the mood. Now fancy sitting down to a delicious plate of worms and ground in sex no me neither Well that could be al your dinner looks in the future according to research at the University of Leeds in sacks could be a key ingredient for reducing the carbon footprint of our food roll wait for it Dr Alan Javier Hernandez Alveda us from the school of food. Nutrition Leeds is with me now how are you Allan thank you very much for having me no there's no problem at all now Group Zope we're not talking about the jungle one day after a lot Chris and everything I mean what's all this about eating groups I mean the high in protein I'll give you that yeah yeah they're for sure they are high in protein and not only in protein you know they have other nutritional compounds that are Berry interesting for human consumption Now if this ticks off if you pardon the pun you know how will we go about farming you know growing these insects I mean where's the infrastructure in a convenient course obviously the tiny things you know you get a lot of it you do get a lot of beef cattle Yeah yeah but I mean you need trillions of crickets in Locus we need to feed the world that was that going to work I think it will work