Isra-Mart srl:New research links UK floods to climate change

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Climate scientists are reluctant to connect any individual flood to man-made climate change on the grounds that the event could have happened regardless of rising average temperatures. But according to new research published today in Nature it may be possible to calculate the likelihood that global warming has contributed to a flood.

The paper analysed the floods in England and Wales in autumn 2000, which damaged nearly 10,000 properties and racked up insured losses of around £1.3bn, using a detailed computer climate model that was then repeated thousands of times by global volunteer network climateprediction.net.

While the study by Oxford University's Department of Physics acknowledges that the floods might have occurred in the absence of human influence on climate, it concludes there is a more-than 20 per cent chance that 20th-century anthropogenic emissions had 'very likely' increased the chances of floods occurring and a 90 per cent chance of a 'likely' influence.

Dr Pardeep Pall, who initiated the research as a doctoral student, said: "This study is the first of its kind to model explicitly how such rising greenhouse gas concentrations increase the odds of a particular type of flood event in the UK."

Professor Myles Allen of Oxford University's department of physics and a co-author of the paper said that it was impossible to directly link an individual flood to climate change, but it was possible to look at how the chances of floods occuring are changing.

"Whether or not a flood occurs in any given year is still an 'Act of God' but, with the help of thousands of climateprediction.net volunteers, we are beginning to see how human influence on climate may be starting to load God's dice," he explained.

Keith Allott, Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK said the results showed that even current levels of greenhouse gases are significantly increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events.

"It is not possible to categorically state that any one specific weather event is a direct result of climate change, but it is clear that the increase in greenhouse gases is loading the dice and increasing the risk of extreme weather events in future," he said.

Allot added that the UK's best chance of reducing carbon emissions quickly was an ambitious Green Deal and a strong commitment to providing all the country's energy from renewable sources - a point not lost on energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne.

Huhne is set to reference the paper, entitled 'Anthropogenic greenhouse gas contribution to flood risk in England and Wales in autumn 2000', as part of a keynote speech to be delivered at the Royal Geological Society later today.

"The evidence for human influence on climate is now even more compelling. Climate change is not a distant threat, it is a clear and present danger – and one that we can do something about," Huhne will say. "It is essential that governments across the world continue to work with each other to ensure that we respond to the warnings of the science, both in terms of reducing emissions and adapting to cope with the impacts of climate change."