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The Wettest Winter
The months of December, January and February have been the wettest on record in the southern half of England and Wales, and February still has a week to run. These months have also been considerably warmer than normal. The rain has fallen and the cold has stayed away.
There will be more rain falling in the next week.
Weather, like form is temporary; climate, like class, is permanent. If the wet winters continue we will have to treat this as a feature of our climate, rather than a bit of odd weather.
No harm is done is planning for the worst and over engineering our flood defences and buildings to withstand floods and periods of exceptionally heavy rain. It will make homes more expensive but we have to change from the Government’s official flood defence cost benefit ratio, which is that every pound we spend we make savings of eight pounds in flood damage.
Such a ratio does not take into account the vagaries of British weather; it also appears nonsensical, as though we can get value for money according to a formula when it comes to something as unpredictable, both in type and in effect, as the weather.
Filed under: climate change Tagged: climate, climate change, cost benefit ration in flood defences, weather 
Source: http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/the-wettest-winter/
