From the Daily Skeptic
Chris Morrison
Back in biblical times and beyond, great floods and storms were punishments for those who went against prevailing orthodoxy and beliefs. This is certainly a natural choice for modern climate doomsayers. Needless to say, inconvenient scientific facts are not popular in the Net Zero Latter-day Church, so alarmists are warned to stop reading here. The rest of us can digest Paul Homewood's recent research on the UK climate in 2023, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Sea level rise has shown no acceleration on a multi-decade scale, rainfall has not become more extreme, and storms have become less powerful in recent years, the report noted.
Homewood noted that it was now slightly warmer than before, “but the climate in the UK has changed very little in recent years”. He went on to say that long-term trends pale in comparison to natural variations in UK weather and there is no evidence that the weather is becoming more extreme. “There's nothing in the data that suggests the climate will become more extreme in the future,” he concluded.
Holmwood observed that sea level rise across the UK was between 1.3mm and 2mm per year after accounting for vertical land movement, with the rate of rise not accelerating on a multi-decade scale. But rising sea levels are vulnerable to climate alarmists promoting the political fantasy of “net zero.” In 2022, residents of Gloucester were shocked when local newspapers reported that the cathedral, which sits 19 meters above sea level, would be flooded by 2050. Mirror One story that much of the Midlands would be under water added to the joy across the country. Coastal towns in Hampshire, Essex, Sussex and Kent are said to be at serious risk. Half of Belgium, Germany, northern France and the Netherlands “are expected to be submerged by 2100”.
All of this is the work of Climate Central, the Green Blob-funded outfit that specializes in delivering publication-ready stories for particularly sleepy journalists. In its own words, it “provides authoritative information to help the public and policymakers make informed decisions about climate and energy.” As well as the outpouring of laughter, we seem to have Climate Central to thank for establishing world weather attribution in the UK. It claims to have “initiated conversations with leading researchers and leading journalists about integrating attribution science into the news cycle”. Green Blob's money has rarely been put to better use. The pseudoscience of blaming individual weather events on human-caused climate change is well known, and “key journalists” are ready to peddle all unverifiable claims under the guise of “scientists say.”
Meanwhile, back in the real world, it's not obvious that rising sea levels in the UK and elsewhere – which are relatively small compared with 4,000 years ago – won't pose much danger in the near future. Many Pacific islands are expanding due to natural accumulation, and a recent scientific paper reveals shocking news: low-lying Bangladesh has expanded by 3,274 square kilometers in the past 34 years.2 Reached 137,656 kilometers2. Bangladesh and its location in the Bay of Bengal have long been a warning of coastal flooding and population displacement. However, recent land expansion is overwhelmingly the result of coastal relative sea level decline and simultaneous seaward coastal land growth.
Earlier this year, a senior Met Office meteorologist told the BBC that storms in the UK were becoming “more intense” due to climate change. In fact, the opposite is true, Paul Homewood points out, and this is confirmed by the Met Office, which clearly stated that the Burns Storm in 1990, the Boxing Day Storm in 1998 and the Great Storm of 1987 were The Burns Riot of 1990 was much worse.
The graph above clearly shows the decline in wind speed over 50 years. Annual analysis of Bentley's peak wind gusts is said to confirm this trend and show that wind speeds have been falling.
The British Isles are a very rainy place, and given its northern location near the top of the Atlantic Ocean, all the expected natural variability has a large impact on the climate. Last April, the BBC's Ben Rich asked: “Why is it raining so hard?” It's probably not something that people would have thought of as a headline, as everyone who has ever lived in this soggy land has probably had it. Similar feelings. Rich said the Met Office predicts that by 2070, British winter humidity will be 30% higher than in 1990, and rainfall will be 25% higher.
There's no doubt that computer models are behind this crystal ball gazing, but actual evidence of recent trends suggests something more benign. Homewood noted that annual rainfall in England and Wales has been increasing since 1980, but the 10-year average rainfall is similar to levels seen in earlier periods such as the 1870s and 1920s. He observed that rainfall increased significantly in Scotland in the 1980s, but that the trend has changed little since then. Meanwhile, rainfall trends in Northern Ireland have changed little since 1931. But not one has happened since 2000.
Chris Morrison is daily skepticof Environment editor.
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