On Jul 24, 11:32 pm, James Annan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >>http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2133244,00.html
>
> >http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article2127599.ece
>
> > "We looked at annual rainfall trends rather than any particular
> > season," Dr Stott said. "In the UK wetter winters are expected which
> > will lead to more extreme rainfall, whereas summers are expected to
> > get drier. However, it is possible under climate change that there
> > could be an increase of extreme rainfall even under general drying."
>
> > Ok, yes it's possible, but Dr Stott doesn't seem to have looked at the
> > question whether it's happened or can be predicted to happen in the
> > UK, ie that there's more floods even in the summer when it's predicted
> > to get drier rather than wetter?
>
> Since everyone is talking about the "worst floods for a generation" it
> seems pretty clear that we are seeing the typical one in 50 event that
> most people can expect to see in their lifetimes. Indeed the max
> rainfall was rather less than half the measured record, and rainfall
> stats are much less complete than temperature.
Well, speaking as one who experienced the floods first hand I'd just
like to point out that we last had one of your one in fifty year
events at the end of October / beginning of November 2000. Those
floods were the worst since the 1947 floods here. Comparing the
photos I took then with the ones I took this weekend shows comparable
flood levels, with this year's floods possibly exceeding the levels
seen in 2000 here in Worcester. My uncertainty comes from not knowing
when the river peaked on each occasion, but it was certainly the
highest I've seen it here. Because the river Avon joins the Severn
downstream from here, and was more flooded this time than in 2000,
Tewkesbury and Gloucester suffered more than we did. Hmmm, two once
in fifty year floods less than 7 years apart. OK, I know my
statistics well enough to know that that can happen.
> I was wondering how the "optimal climate/optimally adapted" people would
> respond to this event :-)
Well, I didn't comment on the "optimal adaptation" thread, because I
couldn't quite formulate what I wanted to say in a coherent manner.
My preferred comment would be "bollocks", but you folk deserve better
than that. From a natural selection perspective, selection of
survival traits tends to happen at squeeze points, not when things are
cosy and comfortable, so I'm minded to conclude that we're optimally
adapted to surviving ice ages, and not per se to our current climate.
But I'm no expert on gene pool selection through environmental
factors.
> It is well known that substantial development
> has taken place in vulnerable areas with limited attention to flood
> risk, rather like New Orleans. On the other hand, maybe it is "optimal"
> to allow such flooding on a 50 year return basis rather than pay up
> front to defend against it. People still buy the houses!
Areas which have never flooded in hundreds of years got flooded last
weekend. This really is a weak argument of yours. Tewkesbury is an
old established town, not some new careless "flood plain" development.
> Of course the usual suspects will try their best to pin it on AGW,
> because that is their get-out-of-jail card for inadequate planning and
> their main "give us more money" argument.
Ad-hominem attacks against straw men, you should know better. Shame
on you.
The problem's like the cigarette and cancer conundrum. You can't
prove which cigarette (if any) caused the cancer, but there's still a
demonstrable link. Similarly whilst climate change could produce
intensified storms and changes in the jetstream, it is impossible to
"prove" any single incident. Absence of evidence, however, is not
evidence of absence.
> The head of the UK Environment
> Agency certainly has previous form on exaggerating climate change for
> whatever purpose (to the extent that the scientists who were
> misrepresented went public with their criticisms, which as noted in the
> resent "Alarmism ad absurdam" thread is extraordinarily rare).
He was wrong once so he's always wrong? Logical fallacy there.
Phil
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