What four years at sea taught me about our relationship to the ocean

Oceans are central to the story of civilisation – so why do so many of us feel disconnected from them?

It was on day 11, I think, that I stopped getting out of bed at all. I had already let my hygiene standards slip to the point that a large knot was starting to form in my hair. Later my mother would have to cut it out with scissors. She didn’t mind. We were all in the same boat.

I was nine years old, and nearly two weeks into sailing across the Atlantic with my family. My father had sailed all his life, and introduced my mother to it; and they spent years preparing to sail around the world. Including my little sister, that made four of us aboard a 52ft yacht – our home for four years from 2000, in which time we got from Dorset to New Zealand.

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Severe flood warnings remain as Johnson’s response is criticised

Labour says PM’s decision not to visit flood sites or call Cobra meeting is ‘a disgrace’

Severe flood warnings remain in place and rescue operations were continuing in stricken communities on Monday evening, as the government faced criticism for its response to what has been described as unprecedented flooding in parts of the country.

With thousands of properties flooded after a month’s worth of rain fell on parts of Britain over the weekend, and more than 200 flood warnings still in place, Labour said it was “a disgrace” that the prime minister was not visiting affected towns and villages and was resisting calls to convene the Cobra emergencies committee.

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Tropical Cyclone Damien brings heavy rain to Western Australia

Elsewhere in the country rainfall offered relief from the bushfires, but caused flash flooding as well

Tropical Cyclone Damien made landfall in Western Australia over the weekend and lashed north-western parts of Australia with heavy rain and damaging winds. Unrelated to the cyclone, eastern Australia also recently had some substantial rainfall totals. While rain came as welcome relief after the severe bushfires, flash floods have now swept across the region.

Storm Hervé marked the end of unseasonable warmth across parts of France and Germany last week as the system brought a cooler airmass, strong winds, and fresh, heavy snowfall to the Alps. Prior to this, south-west Europe as a whole was experiencing exceptional heat, and temperatures rocketed to 29.6C in Valencia in Spain on Tuesday, setting a new all-time February record.

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How do storms and hurricanes get their names?

World meteorological agencies decide when a storm gets a name and what to call it

In Europe storms are named as a joint enterprise between the UK’s Met Office, Ireland’s Met Éireann and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The list is set in advance, runs in alphabetical order and usually alternates between names associated with male and female gender. In 2020, Ellen, Francis, Gerda and Hugh are to follow Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis in turn.

According to the Met Office, the decision for a storm to be named is “based on a combination of both the impact the weather may have, and the likelihood of those impacts occurring. A storm will be named when it has the potential to cause an amber or red weather warning.”

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Billions of locusts swarm through Kenya – in pictures

Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades

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Canada sends soldiers to Newfoundland to aid blizzard clear-up

Province declares state of emergency as snow blocks roads and traps residents

Canadian soldiers have arrived in Newfoundland to help the province clear up after a massive blizzard over the weekend, as residents grow restless about restrictions on travel and closed businesses.

By Sunday night, nearly 200 soldiers had arrived after Dwight Ball, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador province, requested federal help. The move underscored the immense challenges communities face in clearing snow that has blocked residents from leaving their houses and accessing their vehicles.

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‘Snowmageddon’: cleanup begins after record Newfoundland storm

Blizzard dumps nearly 80cm of snow on Canadian city of St John’s as government says military reserves may be called up

Canada’s federal government will help Newfoundland on the Atlantic coast dig itself out in the wake of a massive winter blizzard that buried cars and left thousands without power.

The storm on Friday and Saturday dumped as much as 76.2cm (30 inches) of snow on St John’s, the capital of Newfoundland, and packed wind gusts as high as 130km/h (81mph). The snowfall was an all-time record for the day for St John’s international airport.

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Climate emergency: 2019 was second hottest year on record

Last decade was also hottest yet in 150 years of measurements, say scientists

The year 2019 was the second hottest on record for the planet’s surface, according to latest research. The analyses reveal the scale of the climate crisis: both the past five years and the past decade are the hottest in 150 years.

The succession of records being broken year after year is “the drumbeat of the Anthropocene”, said one scientist, and is bringing increasingly severe storms, floods, droughts and wildfires.

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Ocean temperatures hit record high as rate of heating accelerates

Oceans are clearest measure of climate crisis as they absorb 90% of heat trapped by greenhouse gases

The heat in the world’s oceans reached a new record level in 2019, showing “irrefutable and accelerating” heating of the planet.

The world’s oceans are the clearest measure of the climate emergency because they absorb more than 90% of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases emitted by fossil fuel burning, forest destruction and other human activities.

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Scott Morrison announces recovery effort with ‘months to go’ in bushfire crisis in NSW and Victoria – latest updates

NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says he was frustrated to learn of ADF deployment from the media. Follow all today’s live news and latest updates

The situation is deteriorating in Eden on the Far South Coast. A bushfire moved quickly up from the NSW-Victorian border last night, as the southerly change moved up the coast and turned fires northward. The fire, dubbed the “border fire”, burnt last night from the Victorian border to Victorian Border to the southern shores of Twofold Bay.

It has already affected the areas of Wonboyn, Kiah, Narrabarba and surrounds. Properties have been damaged in the area and building impact assessment teams will be deployed to assess the destruction.

The border fire is now threatening the town of Eden. An update posted on the Bega Valley Shire Council’s website a short while ago warned Eden residents, including those in Snug Cove Wharf, to leave now and head to Merimbula or Bega. Authorities were still attempting to define the fire line near Eden.

NORTHERN TERRITORY

* No current bushfires

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Tumbleweed invasion traps cars and truck on US highway – video

Drivers in Washington state were forced to see in the new year while trapped under a 15ft-high (4.5m) sea of tumbleweeds. Police closed state route 240 near Richland at around 6.30pm on New Year's Eve after the desiccated but mobile plants buried a number of vehicles in their path. It took snow ploughs 10 hours to clear the weeds

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Protests, climate crisis and Ebola: a tumultuous 2019 – in pictures

Around the world people took to the streets in pro-democracy protests, while extreme weather, disease and violence wreaked havoc in some of the most vulnerable communities. But amid disaster, new grassroots leaders came to the fore, women fought to claim their rights and radical treatments for diseases were trialled

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Moscow resorts to fake snow in warmest December since 1886

Hibernation disrupted at city’s zoo and gardens bloom early as temperatures hit record high

Moscow has been so warm this December that the government has resorted to sending trucks filled with artificial snow to decorate a new year display in the city centre.

Videos of the delivery for a snowboarding hill went viral as observers noted the irony of bringing snow to a city that spends millions each year on its removal.

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Cyclone Sarai: one dead, thousands evacuated in Fiji

Storm and flood warnings issued as category two cyclone moves east towards Tonga

One person was killed in Fiji and one was missing as tropical cyclone Sarai battered the country with strong wind and heavy rain, authorities said.

The Fiji National Disaster Management Office said one person was in intensive care and more than 2,500 people had been moved to 70 evacuation centres.

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Typhoon Phanfone: at least 16 killed in Philippines on Christmas Day

Toll could rise as internet and mobile phone networks are still cut off in some badly damaged areas

A typhoon that swept across remote villages and popular tourist areas of the central Philippines on Christmas Day claimed at least 16 lives, authorities have said.

Typhoon Phanfone, with winds of 195km (120 miles) an hour, tore roofs off houses and toppled electric posts as it cut across the Philippines on Wednesday.

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Australia experiences hottest day on record and its worst ever spring bushfire danger

Tuesday’s average maximum 0f 40.9C was Australia’s hottest ever and follows the driest and second warmest spring on record

Australia has just experienced its hottest day on record and its worst spring on record for dangerous bushfire weather, according to data released by the Bureau of Meteorology.

Preliminary analysis suggested that Tuesday was the hottest day on record for Australia, with an average maximum across the country of 40.9C. The temperature beat the previous 40.3C set on 7 January 2013, in a record going back to 1910.

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Australia weather: records forecast to be broken as heatwave temperatures surge past 40C

Oodnadatta and Port Augusta forecast to reach 48C and Sydney’s western suburbs to hit 45C

December heat records are expected to tumble in Australia from Wednesday as a heatwave moves across South Australia to Victoria and New South Wales.

Temperatures are forecast to peak in Victoria and South Australia on Friday, with Oodnadatta and Port Augusta to reach 48C, and peak in NSW on Saturday.

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Killer heat: US cities’ plans for coming heatwaves fail to protect vulnerable

Exclusive: With heatwaves predicted to worsen dramatically over the next 30 years, many big US cities are failing to fully plan to protect those most vulnerable to extreme heat

When heatwaves hammered US cities this summer, one of the hottest in recorded history, some city governments had plans in place to protect their most at-risk residents.

Philadelphia’s plan sent homeless outreach teams to distribute water and bring people to cooling centers. Austin’s plan suspended electricity shutoffs for low-income or fixed-income customers. Chicago’s plan dispatched building inspectors to monitor shelters and other buildings without air conditioning.

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Thousands flee Typhoon Kammuri in the Philippines – video

More than 200,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, say officials, after Typhoon Kammuri slammed into the central Philippines.

The typhoon, the country's 20th this year, brought winds of up to 124mph (200km/h) and caused flooding and landslides. Hundreds of flights at Manila's Ninoy Aquino airport were cancelled. At least three people are reported to have been killed

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