Which highlights the tragic confusion caused by irresponsible policies that attack the establishment of renewable energy in favour of short term 'get rich quick' schemes involving fossil fuels.
Sadly farmers in Somerset, villagers in Hambledon, and train users in the South West (to name a few) have the idea that flooding, gale force winds and overflowing rivers can be fixed permanently with Environment Agency action and government spending.
The FACT is, these events will not only become normal in the future, but also will become more EXTREME!
In public Julia Slingo and her colleagues have to be very cautious, she knows the truth about climate change and the impacts it will have, but she has to word her public anouncements with care, hence the statement:
"There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events."Which is code for 'we believe and worry that climate change is responsible'.
So what can people expect?
Well the Somerset levels and Hambledon village down the road will likely flood more regularly and the flooding will probably more extreme. We either spend ever increasing amounts of money to defend against flooding rivers, rising ground water and sea level rise, or we abandon these places. We also have to cut carbon emissions, beacuse ultimately that is the only lasting solution.
Climate change is going to be hard. Even with defences, some people will have to migrate from flood risk areas and green spaces will have to be built on to accomodate those that have to migrate. If areas do flood regularly then homes should be built that can handle to flooding. People around the world build floating homes or homes on 'stilts'. In order to survive we have to change and adapt.
Blaming the Environment Agency and stirring up trouble won't achieve anything. Ye old cottages and boring boxes are the past as far as housing is concerned.
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/uks-exceptional-weather-in-context/
3 comments:
Last year Julia Slingo claimed that the cold and snowy weather in the UK was likely caused by "climate change". This year she asserts that "climate change" is responsible for the mild, very wet and stormy winter, without presenting any evidence linking CO2 levels with observable effects on recent weather. The IPCC models predict drier winters and rising temperatures, but are largely invalidated as temperature measurements show no warming for at least 15 years.
Climate Change is about energy in the system. If you warm up one part of the planet, that creates an imbalance in energy distribution which results in winds and other weather changes (including local cooling).
Although CO2 is evenly distributed in the atmosphere, the energy absorbed from the Sun and hence in the biosphere isn't.
Julia Slingo and thousands of other scientists are perfectly correct in stating cold weather and warm weather can be the outcomes of global warming, that fact is no different to the way weather works with more or less CO2.
The science of Global Warming is established and predicts increasingly extreme weather and greater frequencies of it.
It is perfectly acceptable to equate news of extreme weather events and the increasing frequency to the established science.
Scientists have been predicting these things for many years, when they happen it's just a case of 'I told you so'.
Regarding the IPCC and the last 15 years of temperatures:
"Powerful winds in the Pacific are largely responsible for the recent slowdown in global warming..."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25015-climate-slowdown-just-wait-until-the-wind-changes.html
"Research looking at the effects of Pacific Ocean cycles has been gradually piecing together the puzzle explaining why the rise of global surface temperatures has slowed over the past 10 to 15 years..."
http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-winds-push-global-warming-into-oceans-england-2014.html
The IPCC has evolved it's opinions regarding precise changes in weather. In AR4 they suggested warmer and wetter winters in Siberia and colder and drier winters in Greenland.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch11s11-8-1.html
Also variation in temperature isn't the climate temperature signal. There will always be variations over many years, but the gradiant is always upwards as long as CO2 emissions continue to rise.
Julia Slingos report about the cold weather in 2013:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/cold-spring-2013
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