What’s really going on here

Published 26 July 2007

This is not "a poor summer". Britain has been experiencing its worst ever climate change event. We must recognise this and our own responsibility for the emerging crisis.

As I write, everything of value in my office is piled up on the top shelves. The police have been round to warn us of imminent flooding, and our area of the Thames in Oxford remains under a severe flood warning. The railway line is cut in both directions, and many of the roads in the county are also under water. In Lower Wolvercote last night the water had begun to rise up through the drains, and the word from the Environment Agency is that flood levels are now higher even than in the great flood of 1947.

None of this is surprising, given the intensity of the downpours that swept central England on 20 July. I have never seen anything like it - except perhaps while riding out a developing hurricane on the Outer Banks of North Carolina five years ago. The rainfall had that same torrential violence, the sky that same ominous dark quality. All that was missing was a storm-force wind. Scanning the Met Office radar picture on the web, I recognised the same rainfall intensity as you find in a hurricane's eyewall, with an arc of bright red and white indicating the most extreme measurable precipitation. My closest weather station at Brize Norton recorded 126mm of rain that day, almost double the previous daily record of 70mm established in 1968.

This summer has certainly been unusual. A persistent kink in the jet stream has delivered a near-constant flow of Atlantic depressions to the British Isles, driving them much further south than normal. Our 20 July downpour was something of a "perfect storm", a slow-moving front bringing warm, moist air from Europe into contact with a cooler air mass from the west. The result was fearsome clouds bursting up to 10,000 metres or more in height - hence the day-long gloom and the monsoon underneath. The flip-side of this is the extreme heat and drought being experienced in eastern Europe and the Balkans. Hungary and Romania have baked in temperatures of more than 40°C, with wildfires sweeping Greece and dozens dying from heatstroke.

What I find ironic is that the clamour over climate change seems to be dying down just as Bri tain experiences perhaps its worst-ever climate-change-related event. The Environment Agency head, Barbara Young, consistently reminds the media of this bigger picture, and the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, has also talked about the "unprecedented" nature of the rainfall, but the press is already out to find some hapless official to blame. The chatter over Radio Oxford's airwaves has been about whether the rivers should still be dredged, whether the local authorities organised enough sandbags in advance, and whether 4x4s are suddenly a necessity to ferry children home from flooded schools. But the fact is that the amounts of rainfall, as Benn suggests, have been so extreme that any measure of preparation would have been bound to fail.

Pernicious stuff

This widespread refusal to acknowledge the climate-change-related nature of the floods is worsened by meteorologists who insist on pointing to short-term factors - such as the jet stream, or La Niña - rather than admitting the longer-term realities of a changing climate. A particularly egregious example came on 22 July from John Kettley, writing in the Daily Mail. "In my view, none of the severe weather we have experienced is proof of 'climate change'," Kettley asserted. "It is just a poor summer - nothing more, nothing less - something that was the norm throughout most of the Sixties . . ." He went on to talk about "a pattern of warming and cooling" in previous decades, as if the warming trend we are experiencing now were somehow nothing new.

This is pernicious stuff. Kettley must know that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that current global warming is unprecedented in historical timescales, and that it is directly related to anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions. The Met Office is one of the leading climate-change research centres in the world, and adheres solidly to this consensus. Of course, no single weather event is ever "caused" by climate change, but the warming of the atmosphere is a constant underlying factor because of the physical reality that a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water vapour. Therefore, for any given rainfall event, the resulting precipitation is likely to be more intense. This is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms, in its February report: "The frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased over most land areas, consistent with warming and observed increases in atmospheric water vapour." Because of global warming, all of our weather is now partly unnatural, given that it takes place on a planet nearly 1° Celsius warmer than it would be under natural conditions.

As the IPCC states, there is an identifiable glo bal trend towards more intense precipitation - in all regions, and in all seasons. Even where the climate overall is becoming drier, as in Australia, when rain does arrive, it falls with undreamt-of ferocity. That means flash floods, even in places far away from rivers that may never have experienced flooding before. In the past month or so, extreme weather has been evident across the globe. In Sudan 50 people have been killed in floods, in China 400. Colombia, Pakistan and Ethiopia have also been hit. None of this on its own "proves" climate change, but it clearly fits the prevailing trend. There is more energy in the system, driving a more vigorous hydrological cycle.

Climate change is a change in the average weather. It does not mean that every British summer will bring floods - in fact, it is predicted that the average summer will continue to get drier, particularly across southern England. But it does mean that when the cloudbursts do happen, we are all going to have to be better prepared, both mentally and logistically. This may mean stronger measures to stop people making unnecessary journeys, which contributes to congestion and stops the emergency services being able to reach affected areas. (I am constantly struck by how reluctant people are to allow natural events like the weather to interrupt their cherished routines: even after days of severe weather warnings they still stream on to the roads as if on autopilot.) It should also mean much stricter rules about housebuilding on flood plains, unless the new properties are expressly designed to cope with flood risk.

Above all, it means being honest with ourselves about what we are seeing. Admitting our own culpability in this emerging crisis is a recipe not for despair, but for hope: we can still stop the situation deteriorating beyond the point of no control, but only if we act fast to cut back on greenhouse-gas emissions. And that means politicians in particular need to sell the climate mitigation message better, making explicit links, for example, between the misery of people in Tewkesbury and the determination of BAA to expand Heathrow and Gatwick. Polls show that the general public is still not convinced about the reality of climate change, even as the flood waters rise towards people's front doors.

Mark Lynas is the author of "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet" (Fourth Estate, £12.99)

UK flood defences: THE FACTS

Flood defence has been co-ordinated by the Environment Agency since the 1953 east coast floods, in which more than 300 died.

Only 57 per cent of Britain's flood defences are in good working order.

On 3 July, Hilary Benn announced a rise in funding for defences from £600m to £800m. Spending has doubled since 1997.

A memo leaked in June said defences are facing cuts of £15m that could last until 2011.

The average insurance claim by a flooded homeowner is for £15,000-£30,000. The July floods caused £1bn of damage.

Overloaded Victorian sewers account for roughly 50 per cent of preventable floods.

The Environment Agency is looking to "manage" flooding by directing water on to uninhabited land rather than building barriers.

For Exercise Triton 04 in summer 2004, 1,000 service personnel enacted a scenario in which floods wreck half the country.

Building on flood plains has left 1.7 million homes at risk. The Environment Agency objects to thousands of such planning proposals, but 20 per cent pass regardless.

Planning law stipulates a flood risk of less than once every 100 years (once every 2,000 years in London). Dutch law requires a risk of at least once every 10,000 years.

Thames Barrier closures increased from once a year on average in the 1980s to 19 in January 2003 alone.

Compiled by Matthew Holehouse

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18 comments from readers

aelemay
26 July 2007 at 22:56

I am amazed at the number of people who seem to believe that man’s CO2 emissions are causing Global Warming, even the New Statesman.

This belief that man is causing Global Warming with CO2 emissions has caused many countries in the world to sign the Kyoto accords which have cost billions of dollars with no measurable effects on CO2 concentrations. And, now, in the US, States like California have passed laws mandating CO2 reductions. This is a common pattern all over the world.

Much of the reason for this belief comes from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is a group of politicians and scientists dedicated to the idea that the CO2 man emits contributes to the Green House Gas (GHG) effect. This means the trapping the sun’s energy under an atmospheric layer of gases instead of reflecting energy into space. Now, water vapor is 95% of all GHG’s and man’s contribution is less than 1% of all GHGs. So, if all humanity was euthanized, all industry, power plants, and transportation, were shut down it would only affect 1% of the GHGs. Now, is this like the tail wagging the dog? How could this 1% control the whole?

I saw charts of the earth’s temperature in the 20th century in the IPCC reports, and, even though man’s contributions of CO2 have increased proportionally with population growth and industrialization, this increase does not fit the curves for temperature. The environmentalists say the earth’s temperature has gone up 1 degree Celsius in the twentieth century, but they never admit that most of this warming happened before 1940, and although there was a warming period from the early 1980s to 1998, there has been no warming since then. None. Zero.

Now, recent studies show that this pattern has followed the variations in the Sun’s energy on the earth. Mars and other planets are also warming in the same pattern. So, I ask you, is it CO2 or the Sun’s influence?

Reputable climate scientists all over the world do not believe man is causing Global Warming, and even many who served on the IPCC now believe that they were wrong to support this theory. If anything, many scientists feel we are now entering a cooling period. There is absolutely not a consensus of scientists who believe this, the consensus is among politicians who want increased taxes and controls, and the Environmental lobby who have an ax to grind.

And, even more recently, there is a Television program called “The Global Warming Swindle” which is a set of interviews with the world’s leading climate scientists who make a good case for the whole IPCC effort, the Environmentalists efforts, and the United Nation’s role as an example of a money spinning scam. And, since many scientists who were part of the IPCC have denounced the fraudulent and inaccurate use of their work, and the use of their names as an imprimatur of scientific accuracy, there is a moral principle here since the IPCC is not telling the truth. If you do a Google or Yahoo search on the title, you will find a high quality video on Yahoo’s video site.

So, why are states and local governments passing draconian laws to curtail development, throttle the power industry, raise taxes on carbon affecting all energy sources, and, yes, even nuclear power, or setting up carbon cap and trade agreements like the one in Europe which has seen the carbon units trade at 20 € per metric ton, to literally centimes, in the last two years, indicating that the scheme is a failure. The only reason I can see is that the prescribed medicine is the same old stuff in the Environmentalist’s bottle which they have been pushing for decades. For them it’s a Religion, and they have found a new disease to which they can apply their witch’s brew.

Man is not causing Global Warming, it’s not true, it’s a lie, and our gullible politicians are letting radical Environmentalists use this scam to stop our growth, stop construction of needed infrastructure for our growing population, and to do to our society what their environmental terrorists tried to do -- curb growth by destroying businesses and cars, burning construction projects to the ground, spiking trees, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars damages to private and public facilities.

The state of California is in a state of crisis over its budget because the anti-CO2 emissions law passed in 2006 promises to halt all energy, road, and housing development, and the State Attorney General is suing Counties for not enforcing the law, even though it is not effective until 2012. The Republicans are holding-up the budget approval process until the State moderates its processes of stopping all growth because of the 2006 legislation.

This Global Warming fairy tale is a much weapon for Radical Environmentalists than illegal terrorist activity. It is better for them, and much more effective. It’s just a terrible result for everyone else, and the damage will be felt for generations.

We should stop it now, and the New Statesman has a responsibility to do its homework and not just repeat the same old lies being told every day for political purposes.

Qwertius
27 July 2007 at 03:44

If anyone is spreading "pernicious stuff" it is you Mark.

While you might pour scorn over highly qualified meteorologists, whose opinion varies from that of the IPCC, the rest of the world isa not so easily fooled by the oft repeated claim that their is "scientific consensus" amongst Climatoligists.

If you ever choose to do some real hard journalism, instead of falling for the glib sensationalist headline stuff that you are currently trotting out, you'll soon find that there is a whole army of highly qualified scientists who remain skeptical in relation to the entire Man made Global Warming scenario.

FlipC
27 July 2007 at 11:00

@aelemay - "How could this 1% control the whole?" Look up the phrase 'tipping point'. I do agree with some of your points though, there does seem to be an obsession with GHGs and man's creation of them to an almost exclusion that there might be any other possible cause. There is also no evidence that even if we reduced such emissions even to zero that the climate will return to 'normal' or even stabilise.

However, it must be seen as fact that man does have an affect on the entire environment in many differing ways that alter it from the state it was in when we initially evolved as primates. Thus it is in our own selfish interests that we attempt to maintain it at this initial 'natural' level or as close as possible if only to increase our own probability of species survival.

Qwertius
28 July 2007 at 09:33

To KevinM.

Sir,

If anyone is being dishonest, it is you.

First you provide us with a link to Realclimate org, which anyone will tell you is a mnouthpiece for the IPCC.

Secondly, you accuse Durkin and Dr Timothy Ball of blatant deception.

How utterly dishonest of you.

Dr Ball, has a PhD in historical climatology, another name for it, is Paleoclimatology. Both are legitimate fields of climate research.

In future, I suggest you do some basic research instead of going off on a wild with hunt.

Oh and one final point...if you want to have a good look at what is really happening climate wise, then look no further than Clmate Audit

http://www.climateaudit.org/

and

Icecap.

http://icecap.us/index.php

Which is also includes a number of prominent climatologists and meterologists.

Qwertius

Douglas Chalmers
28 July 2007 at 16:07

Oh, groan..... “The Global Warming Swindle” doco has been proved to be inaccurate and pseudo-scientific if not a downright farce. And it hardly matters what global warming is caused by - its here and what are we going to do about it?

There has been an incredible amount of disinformation supported by peoples' fears and subsequent desires to deny or refuse to accept the inevitability or the vastness of the coming changes. Engaging ever more fervently in irrelevant wars in far-off countries - even to the extent of using nuclear missiles - will not help.

The decades of inaction and distraction with more 'clever' policies has now come sadly to an end. Realisation must be followed by infrastructure upgrading and investment. No amount of nuclear submarines or aircraft carriers will improve anything. Global co-operation is now the utmost impaerative in all respects.

KevinM
29 July 2007 at 13:09

Qwertius,

I didn't go off on a wild hunt, I was working from from memory from what I had read sometime ago. Unfortunately my recollection was wrong and it was poor of me to characterize Dr Timothy Ball in the way I did.

Similar material to what I had read then can now be found here:

http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Jo...

Are you saying that realclimate is a mouthpiece fo the IPCC, if not, who is it that describes realclimate as a mouthpiece of the IPCC? And the evidence there is for this claim. The people running that website are a collection of mostly climatologists who do research in the field of climatology publishing peer reviewed papers in the relevant journals. They spend considerable time countering press releases put out by oil industry funded think tanks who do very little research on climate change that is published in well recognized peer reviewed climate related journals like the journal "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics".

As to the icecap website. Firstly I could not find out which peer reviewed journals on the icecap website these papers have been submitted to, if you could provide a list of the journals they have been published in that would be good.

As to climate audit. Steve MacIntyre seems to be quite an expert on climate change. What peer reviewed papers on climate change has he written?

KevinM

davef
29 July 2007 at 18:18

Where do all these wierdos come from? Is there a CIA plot to monitor people talking about climate change and then slap in a smart rebuttal? Aelemay's long-winded prose looks pre-prepared to me and oh.. it looks like he/she is American. Why am I not surprised? Who is paying you Aelemay?

Red Shift
30 July 2007 at 15:24

Of course 'Man' isn't causing global warming, but to believe global capitalism has no relationship at all to changing weather patterns, is to demonstrate the mind set of an ant, a very dull stupid ant at that,

hallblithe
31 July 2007 at 17:50

Indeed, the idea that we as individuals are responsible for global warming is just so much hot air:

http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2007/05/global-...

vincedoc
01 August 2007 at 13:06

Would agree with davef that the first response seems somewhat overly well prepared. Respectfully suggest that aelemay should declare any interests.

Zen Bones
02 August 2007 at 07:44

I see a lot of theoretical similarities between the climate crisis and AIDS. Instead of putting all of our energies in trying to stop these tragedies from spreading, we’ve been dragging our feet for decades pointing fingers about who’s to blame and paying more attention to belief systems than the realities of these horrors. The denial of our part in this climate crisis is as irresponsible as those who would like to stop AIDS by just telling people to be abstinent. We have to take a long, hard look at human nature and our inherent excesses. Regardless of which ‘authorities’ we choose to believe in, there is no doubt that oil depletion is an imminent threat (we will be peaking oil production in 2008) and pollution of all kinds are destroying our rivers, lakes, oceans, soil, groundwater, forests and thousands of species every year. Future generations will be astounded that while the rivers, lakes and forests were shrinking and the floodwaters were slowly rising to shoulder level, people were arguing about theory instead of working together to find long-term solutions to the dangers that were becoming consistent realities. Even if you don’t ‘believe’ in man’s contribution to global warming; wars, famine and disease are good enough reasons for us to invest in new energies and ways of living that won’t endanger the populations and vital resources of this planet.

taghioff.info
02 August 2007 at 11:04

The debate is over. The IPCC is not some closed club, but a group of some 2000 scientists specialising in this field broght together to produce the most careful and defensible statement on climate change they can produce.

This is the best we can do right now, and the balance of evidence is clear that it is very likely we need to act to avert massive loss of human life.

All of those here who are trying to throw doubt into what is a surprisingly clear scientific picture are complicit in delaying action that may avert the deaths of so many.

Even if we ignore mitigation for a second, we still know the climate is warming, and that we have to do something about it. Are the climate sceptics here seriously proposing that we don't take massive concerted action now, to ensure that food price rises caused by an increasingly unpredictable climate do not lead to mass starvation amongst the poor?

Since I never see such concern, I am fairly certain that the climate sceptics here are mostly concerned with stopping any action being taken, because they are wither instinctively siding with the rich and powerful, or actually getting paid off by them.

Admin
07 August 2007 at 13:21

From letters to the editor:

Mark Lynas' article on the recent floods (Let's be honest NS 30 July) reaches an obvious conclusion in the final paragraph and at least puts the emphasis on politicians to act. However his light touch is a tad less than honest. It is not the citizens that have to be made aware of their actions. The impending fines on local authorities, set by government, for failure to meet recycling targets are enough motivation for most householders to do their bit. However government is reluctant to take an equally determined approach with the corporate sector. A simple example will suffice. Enter any supermarket in the country on the brightest of sunny days and you will see every light on.

Mr. K. C. Gordon

Admin
07 August 2007 at 13:23

From letters to the editor:

The floods and climate change blogs were an eye-opener. In the main, the NO bloggers justified their stance with sensible, alternative reasons whilst the YES bloggers adopted a fundamentalist stance and an abusive attitude to those who disagreed. Attacking the person rather than the argument is often a sign of a weak case.

I have come to the conclusion that climate change is the new religion and that I am a heretic.

Alan Johnson

carlj
08 August 2007 at 12:22

I have just registered to this site and cannot believe the number of people posting here who do not believe the earth's climate is changing rapidly due directly to man's actions. Time to face facts people! It's real, it's here to stay and it's going to get worse, much worse! The evidence is there for all to see for those who care to look at it. Mother nature is not going to perform some magical act to make everything right. The deserts on earth are growing, the rainforests disappearing and the polar ice caps melting. The world's glaciers are melting rapdily which very soon will leave many millions without fresh drinking water for months at a time. Flood will drought in large parts of the globe displacing populations on a scale never before witnessed. The refugees of the mid 21st century will be climate refugees roaming in search of food and water. As these people become more and more desperate (see Darfur) they will become more violent. Nationalism in its most extreme form will inevitably emerge in the UK, Northern Europe, Russia and the USA leading to armed conflict. The good news, it CAN be stopped! But we need massive governmental support / legilsation in the corporate sector and encouragement for individuals to do as much as they can realistically! WAKE UP!

cjthoday
17 August 2007 at 17:29

It is an indictment of our education system that so many people lack an understanding of science. Scientific theories are grounded not in the authority of individuals but in facts and in logical deduction from those facts.

Global weather systems are so complex that it is not possible to argue from a general theory to any particular event. The recent floods are not proof that global warming is taking place but they are consistent with it. Conversely, the fact that extreme events have happened in the past does not prove that global warming is not taking place - although this fallacy is often repeated in the media.

Clear evidence for global warming is presented in Al Gore's book: "An Inconvenient Truth". There is no double that the polar icecaps and major glaciers are melting. That is direct evidence that global warming is a reality.

While it is not possible to prove that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, scientific measurements have shown that CO2 is now way above anything that has existed in the last 650,000 years. It is foolish to assume that this will have no effect on our climate. We are burning fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate so the increase in CO2 is clearly caused by our activities. Destruction of the rain forests (that remove CO2 from the atmosphere) are adding to the problem. It is also likely that melting of previously frozen wastes will accelerate the rise still further.

It has long been known that the weather in this country is affected by the Gulf Stream which brings warm water from Africa via the eastern seaboard of America and gives us relatively mild winters. If global warming were to change this pattern the effect could be serious. We need to act in our own interests as well as those Third World countries threatened by rising sea levels.

There is no certainty that action to reverse global warming will be successful but we know, from the Stern Review, that doing nothing is the more expensive option. Taking reasonable precautions is no a denial of global warming but a prudent insurance against the increased risk of extreme events.

We are told that the Environment Agency, and other authorities, cannot protect against events that only occur once in 100 years or some other long time scale. This argument is fallacious on two accounts. Firstly the size and frequency of the events is changing so the historical record is no guide to the future. Secondly, while it is clearly impractical to protect every property against every eventuality, there is no excuse for not protecting key public infrastructure. It is crass incompetence to build a critical electricity substation on a flood plane or to site the manufacture of foot-and-mouth vaccine in a building subject to flooding. A review of our planning system is urgently required.

Pat T
25 January 2008 at 19:49

It's not "just a poor summer" - but it is "just a poor winter" - - - - when it's warmer, that's signal, when it's colder, that's noise.

Ah, the magical world of the AGW believer.

Pat T
25 January 2008 at 19:51

And the Stern Review conclusion that doing nothing is more expensive is true ONLY if you assume that the AGW theory is correct.

By that logic, it is more expensive not to listen to Pat Robertson than it is not to listen to Al Gore, since Pat Robertson alleges that we'll all burn in hell if we don't change our lifestyles the way he wants us to, while Al Gore alleges a few droughts and a few millimeters sea level rise if we don't change our lifestyles the way he wants us to.

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About the writer

Mark Lynas has is an environmental activist and a climate change specialist. His books on the subject include High Tide: News from a warming world and Six Degree: Our future on a hotter planet.