Back to Biblical times and beyond, great floods and storms were the promised punishments for those who sinned against the fashionable orthodoxies and beliefs. It is of course a natural go-to for modern day prophets of climate doom. Needless to say, inconvenient scientific facts are unwelcome in the Latter Day Church of Net Zero, so alarmists are cautioned to stop reading here. The rest of us can digest recent research by Paul Homewood on the British climate in 2023 and published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. This notes that sea level rises are showing no acceleration over multi-decadal scales and rainfall is not becoming more extreme, while storms have become less powerful over recent years.
It has become slightly warmer than it used to be, notes Homewood, “but the U.K. climate has changed very little in recent years”. Long-term trends are dwarfed by the natural variability of British weather, he continues, and there is no evidence that weather is becoming more extreme. “Nothing in the data indicates that climate will become more extreme in future,” he concludes.
Homewood observes that sea levels have been rising at between 1.3mm and 2mm a year around the U.K. after taking into account vertical land movement, and there has been no acceleration in the rate of rise on multi-decadal scales. But sea level rises are an easy hit for climate alarmists promoting the Net Zero political fantasy. Residents of Gloucester were alarmed in 2022 by local newspaper reports that their Cathedral, set at 19 metres above sea level, would be flooded by 2050. In the same year, the Mirror added to the gaiety of the nation with a story stating that large parts of the Midlands would be under water. Coastal towns in Hampshire, Essex, Sussex and Kent were at serious risk, it was claimed. Belgium, Germany, Northern France and half of the Netherlands “are expected to be under water by 2100”.
All of this is the work of Climate Central, a Green Blob-funded operation that specialises in ready-to-publish stories for particularly dozy journalists. In its own words, it “provides authoritative information to help the public and policymakers make sound decisions about climate and energy”. Apart from flooding laughs, it seems we have Climate Central to thank for the establishment in the U.K. of World Weather Attribution. It claims to have “initiated conversations with leading researchers and key journalists about bringing attribution science into the news cycle”. Rarely can Green Blob money have been better spent. The pseudoscience of attributing individual weather events to human-caused climate change is well established with “key journalists” ready to peddle all the unprovable claims under the covering banner of ‘scientists say’.
Meanwhile back in the real world it is not apparent that rising sea levels in the U.K. and elsewhere – relatively tiny compared to those just 4,000 years ago – present much danger in the near future. Many Pacific island are growing in size due to natural accretion, while a recently published science paper has published the startling news that low-lying Bangladesh has grown in size over the last 34 years by 3,274 km2 to reach 137,656 km2. Bangladesh and its position on the Bay of Bengal has long been a poster alarm for coastal flooding and population displacement. However, the vast majority of the recent land expansion is shown to have been the consequence of receding relative sea levels along the coasts and synchronous seaward coastal land growth.
Earlier this year a senior meteorologist at the Met Office told the BBC that storms in the U.K. were becoming “more intense” due to climate change. In fact the opposite is true, with Paul Homewood noting that this is confirmed by the Met Office, which has made it clear that the Burns Storm in 1990, the Boxing Day Storm in 1998 and the Great Storm of 1987 were very much more severe than any storm in the last decade.
The above illustration shows clearly the decline in wind speeds going back over 50 years. One annual analysis of top wind gusts at Bingley is said to confirm this trend and suggests that wind speeds have been falling.
The British Isles are rainy places and plenty of climate mischief can be made from all the natural variations to be expected given its northern location near the top of the Atlantic Ocean. “Why is it raining so much,” asked Ben Rich of the BBC last April. Hardly headline stuff one might think since similar sentiments have probably occurred to everyone who has ever lived in these sodden lands. According to Rich, the Met Office predicts that by 2070, winters in the U.K. will be up to 30% wetter than they were in 1990, while rainfall will be up to 25% more intense.
No doubt computer models are behind this crystal ball gazing but the actual evidence of recent trends suggests something more modest. Homewood notes that annual rainfall in England and Wales has been increasing since 1980 but the 10-year average is at a similar level to earlier periods such as the 1870s and 1920s. There was a significant rise in rainfall in Scotland during the 1980s, he observed, but there has been little change in trend since. Meanwhile, rainfall trends in Northern Ireland have barely changed since 1931. As to rainfall becoming “more intense”, Homewood notes that in England and Wales only seven days have exceeded 30mm since records began in 1931, but none of these have occurred since 2000.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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I wonder if Chris is planning a critique of this week’s BBC TV’s Panorama programme on Climate Change? One interesting aspect of the programme was the examination of alternative methods of trying to regulate the climate (shades of Canute) where some concerns were stated on the wisdom of such attempted manipulation and the possibility of dangerous unforeseen consequences of such meddling.
The meddling you describe, is a terrifying prospect.
There is another programme on BBC about this crap complete with the tosser Rowlatt next week that will be worth avoiding for your own sanity.
Off-T
The excellent Frank Haviland.
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/islam-farages-achilles-heel/
Farage has been flaky since he pushed for Bliar to be awarded the job of “Vaccine Tsar” – God help us – but his recent comments on islam have pretty much drained my hope from this man.
There can be no pallying up with Muslims, they want to destroy us and our country. War against muslims might not be official but it is where we are at and Farage won’t acknowledge this. A friend commented that he might be playing the long game, the problem is we haven’t got the time.
Reform are nothing more than pseudo tories.
Our salvation will not arrive via the ballot box.
Yes he got a lot of stick online for that comment, though it was about 50/50 because some were defending him saying he has to be careful politically, yadda yadda. I appreciate he may choose to proceed with caution when commenting about Islam and the now significant Muslim population that the UK bent and treacherous governments have welcomed with open arms ( though the British public have had thrust on them, having not voted for any of this replacement guff ), as not every politician is ready to live like Geert Wilders over here, but I do wish he’d be a bit more forthright on issues and basically take a leaf out of John Prescott’s book, especially where the weaponizing of certain food and drink items come into play;
”John Prescott just being John Prescott.
A far cry from today’s scaredy-cat politicians, too afraid to have an opinion in case they upset a snowflake.
And he did deserve that kicking..”
https://x.com/AvonandsomerRob/status/1859527790426476836
Politico made that point a few days ago, and showed some videos of Farage before & after regarding Islam. A stark difference. Not sure I could vote for them again with the Trojan Horse of Islam in his Chairman. Not that he doesn’t speak well and agree on other subjects. We can’t agree on everything after all.
I wonder whether urban development is the cause of lower wind speeds? The anemometers now being sited in places where the natural wind flow is disrupted by new buildings.
1966: oil gone in 10yrs
1967: dire famine forecast by 1975
1968: overpopulation will spread worldwide
1969: everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989
1970: the world will use up all its natural resources by 2000, urban citizens will require gas masks by 1985, nitrogen build-up will make all land unusable, decaying pollution will kill all the fish, killer bees, ice age by 2000 and America will be subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980
1971: new ice age coming by 2020 or 2030
1972: new ice age by 2070 and oil depleted in 20yrs
1974: space satellites show new ice age coming fast, ozone depletion and “Great peril to life”
1976: scientific consensus planet cooling and famines imminent
1977: department of energy says oil will peak in the 90s
1978: no end in sight to 30yr cooling trend
1980: acid rain kills life in lakes and peak oil in 2000
1988: regional droughts in the 90s, temperatures in DC will hit record highs and Maldives will be underwater by 2018
1989: rising sea levels will obliterate nations if nothing is done by 2000 and New York City’s West Side Highway will be underwater by 2019
1996: peak oil in 2020
2000: children won’t know what snow is
2002: famine in 10yrs if we don’t give up eating meat, fish and dairy and peak oil in 2010
2004: Britain will be Siberia by 2024
2005: Manhattan will be underwater by 2015
2006: super hurricanes
2008: the Arctic will be ice free by 2018 and Climate Genius Al Gore predicts an ice free Arctic by 2013
2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles says we have 96 months to save the world, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown says we have 50 days to “save the planet from catastrophe” and Climate Genius Al Gore moves his 2013 prediction of an ice free Arctic to 2014
2013: the Arctic will be ice free by 2015
2014: only 500 days before “Climate chaos”
2018 A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels by 2023…Greta Doomberg.
2019: Hey Greta, we need you to convince them it’s really going to happen this time
2020 Greta Thunderberg global warming will cause temperatues to rise to 80 degrees celsius and drown 80% of the population.
2024 Greta still alive.
2024 WEF
A succinct summary of the latest religion, man-made climate change
There’s always been a big market for irrational belief and false prophets
‘Peak Oil’ every year since the 1920s in fact.
Hydrocarbons have zero to do with ‘fossils’ or ‘devonian algae’.
So much ‘science’ is just so much stupidity.
The Climate Hasn’t Changed
Homewood observes that sea levels have been rising at between 1.3mm and 2mm a year around the U.K. after taking into account vertical land movement …
So, all around UK you can measure a sea-level rise of 2mm (0.08 inches)? To what degree of accuracy (2𝜎 values)?
I am aware of satellite measurements becoming ever more accurate but to that level? The data will have been collected over multiple years but sea-level (tidal) variations would have to be taken into account, data collection possibly from multiple satellites, satellite orbital data inaccuracies and so on and so forth.
All very interesting work but one wonders if the final results do not indicate that the measurements, presumably spanning not that many years, are at the limit of their usefulness/credibility.
I stood in Ephesus which was a port and the home of John and Mary for eg. I stood in the centre – it is 3 miles from the Med. In ancient times I would have been 0.5 mi from the harbour. What sea level increase exactly? Or is it subsidence? In reality land is demised and will flatten. This gives the impression of a sea level rise.
It is logical that sea and ground levels rise during interglacials (the latter due to being relieved of the massive weight of ice) but, as you write, there will be many local factors to take into account. And I think an extrapolation into the future of what will not be a linear reaction is pushing it a bit, especially when you are in the mm range. Whatever. I was in Ephesus ages ago – an amazing place.