On the difference between knowing and knowing.

I don't just read about the Arctic. On this blog I've touched upon Hansen's findings about temperature extremes and the connection with drought. Elsewhere I've written posts about the intensification of the hydrological cycle. Yes, I've read quite a few papers by scientists like Dai, Syed and Wild on the issue. But this knowledge has remained intellectual, I've known it, but I haven't really known it.

 

 

I've previously blogged on Dr Jennifer Francis's research showing that warming in the Arctic is slowing the jetstream leading to weather patterns becoming 'stuck'. I've noticed the similarity between that finding and flooding events here in the UK, where flooding has occurred due to low pressures moving slowly or just sitting over the UK and streams of heavy precipitation dumping rain over limited areas for 24 hours or more. I've wondered whether that's connected to Dr Francis's findings. 
Living in a basement flat by a river I've dreaded the day when such a configuration straddles my part of the country.

 

Yes, given all I knew, the benefits of a nice flat out of the town centre with a good landlord and quiet neighbours over-rode all my intellectual concerns about flood risks.

 

On Friday the forecast had been for a stream of cloud running across the North West of England to dump a month's worth of rain in a day, exactly the sort of configuration that's made me think of Francis's work. So I got up early and before getting the bus went to check the river near my flat, it was very, shall we say; energetic.  As a precaution I got the afternoon off work due to the flood warnings where I lived, I went home, packed a 'grab bag', and waited to see what happened. At 22:00 the drains started backing up, this was the result of a lower street being flooded. Luckily the whole flooding happened in slow motion, I had time to pack up almost all my possessions, just the furniture was left by the time I'd packed my belongings into my folk's camper van. By which stage the flat was knee deep in drain water.

 

I'm not strongly asserting that this individual weather event was due to climate change, an old chap I spoke to occasionally who's lived on that road for 40 years assured me the river had never flooded, but it remains impossible to say it wouldn't have happened without climate change. We need more time to allow any trends to emerge strongly from the background of natural variability. Here in the UK natural variability is great, so it may take some time for changes to emerge beyond argument. I do think that we're seeing the start of the greater variability (swings from drought to flood) and intensity (record rainfall events) that the models project.  I agree with Jane Lubchenco Administrator of the NOAA who said

"At the same time, (what) we are seeing, with more and more of these extreme events, is completely consistent with what we would expect to see under a climate-changed world,"

ref.

 

So I won't stridently claim my flooding was a climate change event, but I do think it's typical of what we can expect more of. There are two lessons I take from this event.

1. As has been noted elsewhere, people fail to take account of risks they haven't had personal experience of, which bodes ill for action on climate change. 
2. I'm not renting or buying a property by a river ever again.

If I was a victim of anything I was a victim of my own stupidity, not climate change. ;)