Documenting Britain’s Changing Climate
Things are heating up.
Yesterday I read a guest post for We Don’t Have Time, describing conditions in Nebraska and the undeniable link with a warming climate. Over the last decade, the planet has seen floods, storms, wildfires, droughts and melting ice sheets all increase in frequency and magnitude from what we were used to.
I’ve noticed drastic changes to the weather in Britain, and while our situation is nowhere near as serious as that in other places, it’s important to acknowledge and document what we can see happening right now. There needs to be a record of what ordinary people are seeing happen to the places they inhabit.
This week there has been severe flooding near my home. The road I used to live on flooded for the 4th time in 18 months as the river burst its banks. Lancashire, West Yorkshire and North Wales have had flooding so bad that people have had to be rescued from their homes and stricken vehicles. That’s how fast this happened. It should not be a regular occurrence, and yet we’re bracing ourselves for the worst each winter.
When I started my Ph.D (which I never finished), I reviewed several reports linking recent (since 2000) extreme weather events to global warming. Like all reports meant to inform and influence policy, the authors were somewhat cautious — they don’t want to scare…
