Summer floods not climate change - claims (From Worcester News)

Summer floods not climate change - claims

6:07pm Tuesday 11th March 2008 in

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THE jury is still out over whether climate change was responsible for the floods which devastated parts of Worcestershire last summer.

A new report published this week suggests the deluges, which resulted in the county's worst floods in living memory, were a single exceptional event and do not appear to be connected to climate change.

However, climate and flooding experts in the county say there is simply not enough information to draw any accurate conclusions about what caused the excessive rainfall that led to the floods.

Worcester News weather expert Paul Damari said: "You cannot really put that event down to global warming. I believe global warming is going on but there are still lots of other influences which we do not really understand or know about yet."

Dr Peter Moody, scientist and environmentalist based at the University of Worcester, said there was insufficient data to tell whether climate change was a factor in last year's floods and it would be many years before science was in a position to collect enough information.

And Mary Dhonau, chief executive of the National Floods Forum and chairman of Worcester Action Against Flooding, added: "The jury is still out on this. I have yet to be convinced that it was due to climate change."

According to the report from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the amount of rainfall between May and July 2007 was "remarkable", causing flash flooding and floodplain inundation.

The authors of the report, Terry Marsh and Jamie Hannaford, said the flooding was a "singular" incident which showed the UK's continuing vulnerability to extreme weather events.

But the high levels of rain seen last summer do not fit with trends towards drier, hotter summers and wetter winters expected under climate change models.

And while central England temperatures have been increasing in recent years, rainfall showed more mixed patterns which could be down to climatic variability rather than long-term trends, Mr Hannaford said.

Mr Marsh said climate change could even provide "a silver lining" in that drier summers could limit the winter flood period because the soil would absorb more water.

"In warmer, drier summers the soil is going to be dry for a longer period, which is going to be capable of absorbing more of the autumn and spring rainfall, which will reduce winter flooding."

The records were too short to show if the trends could be linked to climate change, Mr Hannaford said.