Climate Change and Extreme Precipitation Definitely Linked

New research shows that the UK is more likely to experience with climate change

Been saying this for years so this post is just to brag about how I’m right.  My university research says this and now others that people actually listen to have proved it too.

Now while individual weather events cannot be attributed to climate change, the frequency/likelihood of these events can be predicted for a warming world.

While the climate system and therefore weather is a complex and chaotic system, and therefore very little can be said with complete certainty, definate trends occur and can be statistically analysed. One of those is the link with rising greenhouse gas emissions and the intensification of heavy rainfall events. This has been shown over the northern hemisphere and others are attempting to show this all over the world. A quick search in a scientific database will give lots of examples.

Another part of my research has been linking the intensification of rainfall to flooding in the UK.  The latest paper shows that man-made global warming is very likely to have increased the probability of severe flooding in England and Wales, and could well have been behind the extreme events in 2000. By running thousands of simulations of the weather conditions in Autumn 2000,  with and without the temperature rises caused by man-made global warming, they found in 9 out of 10 cases that man-made greenhouse gases increased the risks of flooding. Other research is also being carried out on which river basins will be most susceptible  to intensification heavy precipitation here in the UK.

So to summarise conceptually in a simplified way:

Increased greenhouse emissions –> rise in temperature –> increased carrying capacity of water in atmosphere –> intensification of rainfall –> increased flooding risk

Related Articles

• Climate change and extreme flooding linked by new evidence | George Monbiot (guardian.co.uk)
• “Expert reaction to paper on floods and climate warming” and related posts (sciencemediacentre.co.nz)
• Scientists identify human connection to precipitation extremes. (climatecentral.org)
• Surge in heavy rainstorms proof of climate change: Study (windsorstar.com)
• Study links rise in rain and snow to human actions. (nytimes.com)