Wettest weather?
How wet was it where you live? I've just been sent the latest rainfall release from the Natural Environment Research Council which confirms that this year "the UK registered its wettest January to August period on record."
And we have just endured the fourth highest August rainfall since 1962 - for Northern Ireland it was the wettest since they started measuring these things.
As well as a largely thunder-black map showing that the whole of the UK has seen either "substantially above average" rainfall this year or is simply defined as "very wet", the NERC offers little comfort to those people at risk of flooding.
"A significant proportion of index rivers registered new maximum August flows", it records.
"A second successive notably wet summer" has left many areas "very vulnerable to further rainfall with a high short-term risk of more flooding and the prospect of an extended 2008/9 flood season."
Parts of County Antrim saw 10-12 cm of rain in just 24 hours. An intense thunderstorm in Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire registered 6.3 cm in less than two hours.
England and Wales reported its third wettest August since 1956. Scotland saw its fifth wettest since the same year.
Over the whole of the UK, it has been the sixth wettest summer on record; three of the nine wettest since 1914 have been in the last five years (2004, 2007, 2008).
However, historically, wet summers are not that unusual - there were lots in the 19th century. Experts remain unconvinced that we can blame the rain on climate change. They tell me that "current models indicate that the UK will have drier summers on average, but with periods of heavy rain, and that variability (extremes - floods and droughts) may be enhanced."
As in 2007, much of the rain relates to the southerly track taken by the jet stream. When this happens, Britain finds itself in the path of many more vigorous Atlantic frontal systems.
Last year, we were essentially 'saved' from even worse flooding by a very dry autumn. So what do the Met office reckon will happen this year?
"For the UK, temperatures are likely to be either near average, or above average" with "below average amounts of rain".
Let us hope it is "below average" enough for the millions whose homes, livelihoods and, in some cases, lives are threatened by exceptional amounts of rain.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~02~RS~)
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I too have seen the official rainfall figures and I just don't believe them. I have a bucket in the garden and I have repeatedly had to empty it in August. 186 mm of rain in August in Wales - They must have been measuring under an umbrella.
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Three years ago I moved here to the Mojave Desert as my American wife didn't particularly enjoy life in England....
I have to say that I simply couldn't live in the UK again - largely becuase of the weather... I love my country, and as a Londoner think that my home town is just the finest city in the world, but I just can't take the rain and endless grey skies any more.
It so depressing day after day to see nothing but rain and overcast skies - even in what supposedly passes for a "summer"... By contrast - here I wake up to a beautiful blue sky almost every day, even in the winter and it really lifts the spirits ! I'll take 40 degree plus temperatures here for three months of the year over rain any day..
If I ever decided to come back to Europe it would have to be somewhere on the Med ....
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re the US blazing Sun and clear sky.
The US desert sounds quite nice, as long as it is not a bit that was irradiated by the 50's nuke tests. I would think twice about the med it is heavily polluted, and continues to recieve pollution and has been referred to as the worlds biggest sewer for a long time, expect more and more bad news to creep out with time, even though the med countries try and smother it. The French Atlantic seaboard sounds better but I await bad news re that.
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Now don't get me wrong, I know that too much rain can cause lots of people problems and given the prospect of a damper climate planners and the people who finance them (us) should be doing something about it.
BUT
There are lots of people who like rain. There is this mythology that sun is lovely and rain is horrid. If you think otherwise you are considered really strange. Even people who have to have their fortnight in the sun often secretly admit that they are pleased to get back to the cooler, damper and green conditions that we enjoy in this country. There are more closet rain lovers than many would believe!!
Sun worshippers are adding to global warming, because so many places in the sun rely on ait con to make living there possible. Air con causes summer peaks in fuel consumption that easily rival the winter peaks in colder climates
Must go outside. Its just started raining.
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I've just moved to Western Australia for 3 months. It was August when I got here just passed mid-Winter it been their driest August for years -beautiful blue skies - temperatures around 22C. It's mid-winter - but not as we know it! It was a relief from the endless gray skies in Glasgow (147% above average rainfall I note from the map). It will be a real mid -winter when I back to Glasgow.
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I would love the BBC to investigate and show us water levels in the nation's reservoirs now.
We were shown graphic images when there were water shortages and the water companies were urging austerity.
How are things now that the companies have had this, no pun intended, windfall?
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I remember the helicopter pictures of last years floods, and the church at (I think) Tewksbury, sitting in a dry island surrounded by flood waters. Did our ancestors know something we don't?
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dziadek beat me to it.
No doubt this time next year there will be talk of water shortages and hosepipe bans. It always seems to be a case of feast or famine (if that's appropriate language to use when talking about water).
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Foddyfoddy the expression you were looking for ..."deluge or drought"
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Hang on; didn't the believers in the global warming cult assure us that we would now have baking hot drought-ridden Saharan summers for evermore? I'm sorry for all the people who spent lots of money on the drought-resistant plants that they had been told they would need.
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AlanLeon wrote:
Hang on; didn't the believers in the global warming cult assure us that we would now have baking hot drought-ridden Saharan summers for evermore? I'm sorry for all the people who spent lots of money on the drought-resistant plants that they had been told they would need.
It is called climate change not global warming. As scientists have come to understand the inter-relation of climates in the world so their views have come to change. The sahara is getting a lot hotter and drier as are parts of the Med, Australian deserts and American deserts.
However, the north atlantic climate presents a more complex problems. This centres around the north atlandtic convayer and the gulf stream. As Siberia gets hotter the perma frost melts dumping fresh water in the north atlantic. This is having an impact on the North Atlantic convayer.
This may or may not explain the wet weather.
Your assertion that this wet weather is somehow proof of climate change being a falacy is false.
You either do not understand the climate change debate or the basis of science itself.
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lionHeretic wrote:
"It is called climate change not global warming. As scientists have come to understand the inter-relation of climates in the world so their views have come to change."
Ah yes, funny how it used to be called global warming in the 1980/90s, then when these scientists couldn't explain cooling observed in some parts of the world they started calling it climate change instead.
You can't have it both ways - either increased CO2 output causes global temperatures to increase, or it doesn't. Make your minds up.
The earth's climate has been changing for millions of years and will continue to do so, with or without man's help. I can't believe how Governments and the media are trying to brainwash people into believing it's all down to man.
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It's dead easy: with climate change as a whole, the globe gets warmer, but that does not mean everywhere gets warmer- many places get hotter, but some places get cooler.
Weather is not the same as climate, climate changes over a large number of years.
The climate has always changed, but now it is changing very quickly (for a climate change), and that change is because of the historically high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 generated by us burning things.
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Handy Steve:
"The earth's climate has been changing for millions of years and will continue to do so, with or without man's help"
Why are you willing accept that the climate has been changing for millions of years? Were you there to watch them all, or are you relying on scientific analysis?
If the case is the later, why do you accept this part of the analysis, but dismiss the subsequent conclusions out of hand? Why are the experts right about some bits, but according to you, not others?
Exactly what qualifications do you have on the subject, which are of a sufficiently high nature to usurp the authority of countless world experts?
I believe that the ice core analysis allowing you to draw your 'millions of years' conclusions are produced by the the same experts promoting the 'hockey stick' trend of climate change.
Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it is wrong, and doesn't mean it isn't happening.
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chisnapc wrote:
"I believe that the ice core analysis allowing you to draw your 'millions of years' conclusions are produced by the the same experts promoting the 'hockey stick' trend of climate change"
Yes that's right, but you miss my point - the changes I am talking about occurred over very very long periods of time. However, today we have scientists currently making HUGE assumptions about our future climate based on an analysis of very limited data obtained over the past few decades (and not forgetting the added uncertainties of their 'adjustments' to account for time of day readings, urban heat island effects, etc.).
I'll say it again, the supposed global warming theory is that increasing CO2 output causes average global temperatures to increase. If you believe that is true, then take a look at the NASA GISS dataset and explain to me why the average global temp actually REDUCED between 1940 and 1970, despite increasing levels of CO2 during the same period.
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Dear Handysteve,
I concede that the trend of increasing temperatures on the hockey stick is a recent phenomenon, and as such it is hard to extract reliable data.
I also agree that while we may be in a 'hot period' now, there have been occasions in the past which may well have been hotter. In this instance I think it is the rate of change, rather than the absolute change, that will affect our abilities, and those of other species, to adapt.
Your point about the NASA data I will counter in two ways;
When aeroplanes were grounded on 11th September 2001, the average global temperature increased- something which seems counterintuitive. The reason has been attributed to the reflective properties of the high altitude contrails. When they were absent on 9/11 additional radiation was able to reach the surface, raditation which would otherwise have been reflected.
I see no reason why, with the advent and expansion of jet propelled aircraft since the 1940s, why such a cooling phenomenon cannot also be attributed to this. Since the 70s, warming may begin to catch up as the balance between CO2 emissions and reflective contrails changes, if the latter has reached a maximum efficiency.
Secondly, the very fact that grounding aeroplanes for a single day can produce a measurable temperature fluctuation must indicate the inherent ability of man to alter the climate.
While it would be silly to attribute everything to humans, I think the highlighted example indicates the delicate interdependency of every element within the closed system of our planet. We are not entirely to blame but we are not helping ourselves.
Finally, I cannot see anything wrong in cleaning up our act; after all who wants to live on a polluted planet? Even if it does nothing other than reduce asthma rates, I can't see why anyone would be against it.
Regards,
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I have lived in the UK for 28 years and the USA for 29 years. Something you all must understand that ALL countries have pluses and minuses, weather is no exception. While in the UK I witnessed 40-day continuous rain in the late-60s, hurricane-force winds that leveled forests and took the entire stand off the local football club stand and weeks of water-rationing, all in the same region of the UK.
In the US I have seen all of the above and more in greater degree. I live in Oklahoma, the summers are very hot (110F is not uncommon for weeks on end) generally May-Oct, no Spring, no Autumn, then hellishly cold and dry winters. In a normal year we go from Ice-storms that destroy MOST local trees in a night to weeks of no rain but plenty of endless air-conditioning melanoma and heat prostration. Add that the EVER-PRESENT threat of tornadoes.
The water-table here is dwindling, in the desert regions the supply of water and power where insufficient local supply exists is heading towards a huge problem, both in availability but also provenance.
People who think moving to a desert setting will solve their "cloudy" woes should bear this in mind. There is much to be thankful for in the UK, including a regular supply of clean water (YES water quality is a problem here too) flooding notwithstading.
Portland Oregon is one of the best places to live in the US, it is also a very rain-filled city. When the water dries up in California, Arizona, Oklahoma and other states the new "Land Rush" will be on.
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