"Global warming" or Greed

[wingcoax]

Is the flooding really down to global warming? or is it down to the fact that more and more open land is being built on and tarmacked over? And the rain has nowhere to soak into the ground and has to run down the gutters. My last house and the whole street got flooded several times due to new houses being built "UPHILL" from us and the drains not being increased.

 

[jockscott]

Well, London had serious flooding in 1928, so make of that whatever you want, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26153241.. Did they have global warming in those days ??

 

[JohnD]

the vast and abnormal amount of persistent rainfall is certainly not caused by building on open land.

The frequency of "abnormal" weather conditions is increasing. "Once in a century" events are happening more often than they used to. Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are smaller than ever before. Glaciers that have existed for thousands of years have melted.

Where are the climate-change deniers today?

 

[Brigadier]

Very few deny climate change - there is however disagreement on whether it is natural, or anthropomorphic.

 

[wobs]

Obligatory XKCD image:

BTW, Greenland ice sheets are now melting at such a rate, that locals are eyeing up a lot of the land for mineral extraction, where previously the ice cover rendered the region inaccessable.

These changes are happening at a far greater rate than previously, and the evidence points to AGW as being the driver for this increase in rate of change.

I recently saw a presentation similar to this one:
"It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation or the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls will increase over many areas of the globe"
http://www.ipcc.ch/news_and_events/docs/COP19/COP19_final_presentation.pdf

Current predictions summarised here:
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf

 

[JBR]

Very few deny climate change - there is however disagreement on whether it is natural, or anthropomorphic.

Correct. Climate change has been happening for millenia. Such a shame that we are more likely to suffer power cuts in the near future just because some nutters think it's because we burn too much coal.

 

[AronSearle]

the vast and abnormal amount of persistent rainfall is certainly not caused by building on open land.

The frequency of "abnormal" weather conditions is increasing. "Once in a century" events are happening more often than they used to. Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are smaller than ever before. Glaciers that have existed for thousands of years have melted.

Where are the climate-change deniers today?

Global storm activity is at an historic low, current rainfall patterns are within normal levels, you can readily find this information on the met office.

The antartice is larger than ever recorded, not smaller, the artic saw some ice loss, now it's almost back to "normal" (what normal is though?, you can find stories of similar ice loss in early 1900s).

Glaciers have been melting since 1850.

So all in all you are talking rot.

Whether you believe in man made climate change (I do to an extent), its effects are what may happen in 50-100 years, pointing out current weather patterns and blaming man made climate change only disproves such a point of view when you look at the facts.

 

[jeds]

Is the flooding really down to global warming? or is it down to the fact that more and more open land is being built on and tarmacked over? And the rain has nowhere to soak into the ground and has to run down the gutters. My last house and the whole street got flooded several times due to new houses being built "UPHILL" from us and the drains not being increased.

The Somerset Levels is largely drained and reclaimed land, which obviously has a natural tendency to flood. If the water isn't managed the place would be permanently flooded. Back during the war the MOD built a Royal Ordnance Factory at Bridgewater. The factory needed millions and millions of gallons of water so it was the perfect place. The Huntspill was built to make sure there was always a constant supply. Once used the water was pumped out into the sea. The factory closed in about 2007-2008 and the pumps were turned off. So that's thousands of millions of gallons of water that is now not being pumped from the levels into the sea! Secondly, about 10 or 15 years ago the EA declared a priority of returning large areas of the levels to wildlife habitat. This was a central gov initiative to boost up EU targets. Labour hated farmers anyway so the Levels were an easy touch because you didn't need to do much - in fact you didn't need to do anything. Just do nothing and the levels would sort themselves out. So there's two major contributors that have nothing to do with global warming.

 

[maltaron]

It should be remembered that "predictions" are produced by computers which predict according to the data inputted, which varies according to the wim or beliefs of the person inputting the data.

 

[Deleted member 63160]

I was reading quite recently how the earths climate has altered constantly for billions of years. Strangely man has only been driving range rovers for a few decades. I wonder what changed the climate so many thousands of times so extremely before humans arrived.
Climate change-yes been going on for millions of years. Mans fault-no.
Good excuse to raise taxes and exploit the population end off. Oh and of course very good topic for people who need to be campaigning for a "good cause".

 

[Dextraneous]

I don't suppose it's occurred to anyone that climate change and global warming might actually have been slowed down by human activity over the last few hundred years, and that if it weren't for us, the world would be a far far harsher place to live in?

 

[Deleted member 63160]

Bout 64 million years ago the world got so warm the poles were tropical. How did it possibly get that hot without humans and how come it cooled down again without humans? It seems the earths climate changed naturally for millions of years but man is suddenly responsible for any change in the last 100 years. Does anyone really, honestly believe that?
That's like saying the earth has spun on it's axis for however long but yesterday it span cos my neighbors pet rat farted. Ridiculous.

 

[Whitespirit66]

, the world would be a far far harsher place to live in?

Even harsher place than Manchester?

 

[Dextraneous]

That's one big rat

 

[Dextraneous]

, the world would be a far far harsher place to live in?

Even harsher place than Manchester?

Ever been to Gateshead? Now that's harsh