Melting Runways in the UK?

[ClipperLuna]

Hi all, here's a hot headline I just read about from the UK. Apparently the runways at Brize Norton and London Luton have "melted" due to elevated temperatures, and these airfields have had to suspend flights. Are temperatures in that area really that much higher than "normal"?

[Ron Attwood]

It IS hot. But runways have melted before (as have some roads) and they will doubtless melt again. The BBC, God bless 'em are doing their best to frighten the bejesus out of the population with "We'll all be fried in our beds! reporting.

[MarcE]

It IS hot. But runways have melted before (as have some roads) and they will doubtless melt again. The BBC, God bless 'em are doing their best to frighten the bejesus out of the population with "We'll all be fried in our beds! reporting.

yummi

[GrahamP]

It IS hot. But runways have melted before (as have some roads) and they will doubtless melt again. The BBC, God bless 'em are doing their best to frighten the bejesus out of the population with "We'll all be fried in our beds! reporting.

Somewhat flippant exaggeration of a potentially very serious issue there. They're actually making people aware of the very real danger to life and what precautions to take.

And to the first poster, they are record breaking temps for the UK, so yes, much higher than "normal".

[Ron Attwood]

It IS hot. But runways have melted before (as have some roads) and they will doubtless melt again. The BBC, God bless 'em are doing their best to frighten the bejesus out of the population with "We'll all be fried in our beds! reporting.

Somewhat flippant exaggeration of a potentially very serious issue there. They're actually making people aware of the very real danger to life and what precautions to take.

Oh please.

[GrahamP]

Oh please? If a close relative of yours was one of the thousands that have died because of this very issue, maybe you would post more appropriately.

[twsharp12]

Where I live in the USA, the temperatures being seen in the UK an every day experience in July. Actually much higher and for long periods of time. I don't recall roads or runways "melting." It does make it easy to cook an egg on some asphalt though.

Maybe UK roads are made differently? Just seems like odd rhetoric to use. A more proper term would be "elastic," since asphalt does soften with higher temperatures.

[Ron Attwood]

So if the powers that be didn't give 'advice' no one would die? Issue? It's weather! It'll pass. Then we'll be bombarded with 'Protect yourself from the cold' dire warnings.

I'm sick of being preached to by the wokerati

It's all yours. Stay safe.

[GrahamP]

@twsharp12
You may well be right about UK roads being made differently. Because these temperatures are not normal in the UK, the UK does not cope at all well with them in a number of ways. Other countries have learned to cope with them and the UK would do well to learn from them.

[GrahamP]

@Ron Attwood
More of the same

[Genista]

LHR temperature record was beaten today it seems (40.2deg C). Stay safe all. And it's not just UK. France is experiencing the second heatwave of the year. Northern europe is welcoming this new breed of green toxic algae that comes with the rising temperatures. More and more jellyfish as well. Future generation is set for a fun ride (while the previous generation is laughing at them).

[twsharp12]

As bad as some things are, there is also the fact that crop yields are also increasing tremendously. I can't remember a bad year in the bread basket of the USA in the last 10 years. Bumper crop after bumper crop of food. This is also why I think the "inevitable" food shortage is coming when we've had so much crop.

Anyway that's slightly off topic. Stay safe everyone. Drink plenty of water.

[MarcE]

Well, climate is changing. Weather goes by yes... but if it becomes a recurring happening it becomes climate. I'm 35 now, when I remember back to my childhood only 25 years ago we had long periods of constant annoying rain, 3, 4 days at once. Ground was soaked with water, only in high July and August we had to use the hosepipes to water the garden. White Christmas was almost normal where I live in an elevation of 300m.

Now it's generally dry, the water comes in strong but short thunderstorms from the direction of France and Switzerland across southern Germany once in a while, the ground is hard and dry, it can't absorb all the water and it just runs down the streets, often enough filling the basements of downhill houses. My mother asks me to water the garden as soon as winter is gone when they are travaling and I regularily use the warm days in February and around Christmas (more than 20°C) to ride my bike. Snow has become a one day occurancy, maybe two days, only the Black Forest is covered in more snow than it can handle.

Climate is definitely changing, "melted" runways and roads are just another symptom of that fact. A couple of years ago our highways were limited to 80kph due to the heat and bumps on the tarmac. But we need to adapt to it, we can't change it back. Spreading panic as our beloved media does doesn't help anyone and I can only recommend to ignore it and tell them off. Britain won't change their roads with a snip of their fingers, they'll have to use their brain and take care. And so does the rest of the world. It's certainly not normal for the rainy islands in the old days but will become normal soon. The new generations will grow up with it as a new normality and won't know why their parents and grand parents always have a cloak next to the door.

Stay safe everyone and keep drinking before flying

[jeepinforfun]

The climate is changing as it always has been. Last heat wave in the UK was 1976 and after this one it will happen again in the future because we live on a living breathing planet that is forever changing. The atmosphere is a lot cleaner than it was 50-100 years ago, yet people still use it as an excuse for all our maladies which is misguided at best. Advances in technology will continue to improve things but our weather will continue to change, our poles will melt and then be frozen again because our planet is wonderfully self-cleaning.

[ClipperLuna]

Well said, Brett. Indeed, if you look at a graph of temperature vs year on a geologic scale (millions of years), the Earth's temperature is an absolute roller coaster. Hot periods, then cold periods, then hot again.