Is the flooding related to global warming?

[superstarheartbreaker]

thoughts please?

Errrmmmm... YES of course it bloody is!

Yes could be, maybe also biblical, noahs ark?

There's a thought. I live in Somerset. Might have to make an ark. Somerset is basically at sea level. It's the whole denial of global warming which gets my goat!

I thought it was climate change now? Extremes of weathers but not necessarily 'warming'.

Either way, yes it is. What you determine as the cause is the debate though.

I've believed in The Greenhouse Effect as it used to be know for a good 30 years now. Climate change is a good description, global warming less so as people just think ah yes how lovely a bit more sunshine.

I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that this is due in part (a big part) to climate change. I must admit that it terrifies me sometimes as to where it is all headed. I have a book called six degrees or some such and I can't bring myself to read it - all about the devastation that would occur to the planet if it were to warm by 6 degrees. Even a couple of degrees would make the earth a very volatile place to live .

Not much of a debate though, if you actually look at relative weights of peer-reviewed scientific evidence, rather than media coverage given to fringe nutters.

No one weather event can be attributed to climate change, but the evidence says that this sort of thing is going to be more common in future.

Marking space as I've had wine.

About 20 years ago I remember watching a science programme at school about global warming, there was a part about how in the future large parts of the UK would be under water as sea levels rise. It showed a mock map of what the UK would look like in that eventuality and it was quite shocking, but for some reason I never believed it would actually happen, in fact I'd almost forgotten about it until the events of that last few weeks.

I also think the media have played down how bad it is until now, but it's a disaster really. People have been flooded out since before Christmas for fucks sake.

may well be - but cost of dealing with it probably cheaper than stopping it

Carol, any evidence on that? Anything I've seen indicates the opposite - action now to adapt to what is already inevitable and action to cut emissions to prevent even worse is cheaper than future impacts (especially as the cost of renewable energy becomes more competitive).

Excuse my ignorance in this matter but hasn't extreme weather been evident in history forever i.e ice age etc.?

Well the climate has clearly changed, and the weather reflects that. So yeah.

That's why I didn't learn to drive until 35 yrs old and the arrogance of the human race o deny that burning fossil fuels isn't a problem is quite breathtaking.

I'd say that the flooding was down to the fact that in my area it has rained every day since December.

There is evidence that there were glaciers in this country but also evidence that Devon was a very hot desert (obviously not at the same time). Climate change is a natural occurance.

It's about relative frequency of extreme weather events. Scientists say that, by and large, wet places will get wetter, dry places will get drier, extreme weather will become more frequent.

From the most recent IPCC report last year (the working group report on impacts is out next month):

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased (see Figures SPM.1, SPM.2, SPM.3 and SPM.4). {2.2, 2.4, 3.2, 3.7, 4.2–4.7, 5.2, 5.3, 5.5–5.6, 6.2, 13.2}

It can be, but it's changed awfully rapidly these last 20 years! And we've been doing a whole lot of shit to it.

Wabbity, isn't the question whether the current observed climate change is a natural occurrence and how much of it is caused by human influence - and thus whether rapid and dangerous climate change could be avoided by human action?

Yes no doubt , but that is not the question, the question is, Is Global warming the product of industrialization ..............I offer as evidence the 14 century...........No industrialization , no co2 emissions , no CFC,s no internal combustion engines , no high altitude high bypass ratio turbofans chucking out a combination of gases all all capable of screwing with the ozone layer .............and yet it rained and rained and rained , crops failed people starved and then in 1348....Yersinia pestis pestis arrives ..........The Human Race is far to concerned with its own importance , Climate is changing it has done for 3 billion years

Julia, what actual evidence do you have of a true medieval warm period? From all I've read it's been quite widely dismissed on a global (rather than regional) scale as the data was inconclusive. Is there anything recent on this?

Well I was not there ,neither was anyone else alive today , I read I examine I come to conclusions ............Thames froze in the 16 and 1700,s..........why was that ........point is, climate changes regardless , Ice ages 20000 years ago , Jurassic Savanna changed by what , to many changes with no human involvement .............Homo Sapiens is a wart on the arsehole of the cosmos ...............

Charming.

Climatology gives the best evidence (though still with significant uncertainties) if actual temperatures, rather than literary references. Suggest you check out Osborn and Briffa (2006) or Bradley et al (2003) or the IPCC's 2007 report which examines this, to help round out your reading with some science.

Still, the question we need to consider is whether the current climate change is different, whether it's caused to a significant extent by human activity, and whether it is possible and economic to prevent it becoming extreme. The evidence I've seen on all those questions points to a 'yes' answer for each.

Re-planting trees on the hills, instead of giving farmers cash incentives to chop them down might be a start. Leaves hold water, roots suck it down so less water ends up in the valleys.

For those who think we might as well put up with climate change rather than deal with it please watch this Phillipines plea on climate change

You can't attribute specific events to climate change but what climate change suggests is that we will see extreme weather events more frequently. 1/100 year events will no longer be restricted to that time frame.

probably, the argument has been made for ages that for Britain 21st century climate change means much wetter & warmer winters, warmer means stormier, Voilà what we see this winter.

Wet&stormy constantly here this winter due to the jet Stream moving south with fury, pushed by the super cold temps in NA Winter. This in turn is thought to be linked to climate change due to less stable strong winds near the poles. I'm not sure if there's anything really to stop a polar vortex moving down over Europe instead next winter.

I don't think much anyone is arguing over whether climate change is happening; the only argument left is whether it's human-made or part of the natural cycle, and then beyond that, if human ingenuity can adapt & mitigate.

It was this wet in the middle ages as well!