Wash-out is not a blip say UCC experts

Big Tone

The summer downpours can’t be written off as a 2012 weather blip — severe rainfall is here to stay.

That is the view of two experts on climate from University College Cork, as the south of the country braces itself for further rain this afternoon.
Up to 35mms of rain fell in some parts of Cork yesterday while high winds led to debris on several roads.
In areas including Midleton, Douglas and Cobh, fallen trees had to be removed from roads.
This morning, Professor Robert Devoy from UCC said Ireland had experienced wet summers before over the past 30 years.
But he said: “This summer is significant because of the high figures of rainfall. One has to say that this summer is significantly what one would expect from climate change.”
He added: “We are now getting extremes which would be more common than they were before, because of climate change.”
Professor Devoy said local authorities must now be prudent in matters of water management and flood relief.
UCC’s Dr Paul Leahy said analysis of rainfall patterns from the past 60 years showed that rainfall had increased in occurrence in the past 30 years.
He added: “We have entered a shift in weather patterns.”

http://www.eveningecho.ie/2012/08/16/wash-out-is-not-a-blip-say-ucc-experts/

mike65

Funny isn't it? 10 years ago it was drought and wine growing that was our future in a wannabe Med climate - now its sub-tropical!

Min

Yeah, we were told it would be drought conditions in the south east of the country due to climate change, still waiting.
Though some of the scientists seems to change opinion to suit the situation, they are a bit like those psychics on TV3, they know it all...as I still wait for the drought conditions which would mean at least some dry weather...

Joe Public

I don't think anyone would call the summer downpours of 2012 a "weather blip" since we've had a run of bad summers since 2007, except for one maybe. If we got a summer drought we might be talking about blips then.
What else do they do down in UCC :rolleyes:


E.G. of a blip:-
It was a "blip" when Cork won the All Ireand football in 2010:)

charlemont

Its only going get worse, And with bad drainage and the complete lack of preparation flooding will be much more common.

MiNdGaM3

Too many people just focusing on the journalist generated headlines.
You'll end up with a very confused picture of anything doing that.

efrisby

It’s pretty simple, more people, more energy used, more heat going into the atmosphere from cities and factories, causing more precipitation going into the atmosphere resulting in more rain, some areas having more rain, some areas having more droughts, guess which one we got

sunset

In fairness to the UCC academics involved, one is not a climate scientist but works in the area of sea level and coastal studies, while the other is an environmental engineer working on flood warnings (which is a little closer). At least one of these is a member of the IPCC, so can be expected to impose a certain interpretation on any severe event. I doubt they volunteered their comments but were pressed by the media concerned, as is not unusual.

Danno

Flooding is caused by:

* Poor planning... allowing buildings on known flood plains!
* Bog cutting... EU officials warned us years ago to stop cutting the bogs as they soak up heavy rainfall and release it slowly
* Land drainage... the amount of land drainage carried out over the years had been huge and like bog cutting this has an effect of quickly shunting water down our rivers and streams.

I have noticed over the years how quickly rivers rise and quickly they fall once more. The whole drainage system of this area is on overdrive.

We were warned, we didn't listen, we are paying for it.

During the naturally occuring warming of the last couple of decades our oceans and seas built up heat, now that we are in a cooling spell, the oceans continue to release this heat (water holds heat longer than air). Warm seas and cold skies alot of rain does make.

sh1tstirrer

The wet summers are here to stay just like the severe winters of 09 and 10, except last winter we had no frost these clowns will latch onto any thing to make it believable.

MiNdGaM3

Danno wrote: »

Flooding is caused by:

* Poor planning... allowing buildings on known flood plains!
* Bog cutting... EU officials warned us years ago to stop cutting the bogs as they soak up heavy rainfall and release it slowly
* Land drainage... the amount of land drainage carried out over the years had been huge and like bog cutting this has an effect of quickly shunting water down our rivers and streams.

I have noticed over the years how quickly rivers rise and quickly they fall once more. The whole drainage system of this area is on overdrive.

We were warned, we didn't listen, we are paying for it.

During the naturally occuring warming of the last couple of decades our oceans and seas built up heat, now that we are in a cooling spell, the oceans continue to release this heat (water holds heat longer than air). Warm seas and cold skies alot of rain does make.

Yes, poor planning and urbanisation play a role. As does a warmer atmosphere capable of holding more moisture, and in recent years, a slower jet stream causing more stuck weather patterns. We had a pretty dry winter with lots of high pressure, but since April we've had the opposite.
Hence the comment from Robert Devoy that we're experiencing more extremes is quite accurate.

Oceans are not now releasing heat and there is no cooling. So that doesn't work. Sorry.

JM Skipton

sh1tstirrer wrote: »

The wet summers are here to stay just like the severe winters of 09 and 10, except last winter we had no frost these clowns will latch onto any thing to make it believable.

Lets be honest about this, nobody knows exactly what will happen in the future.These Scientists can have their educated opinions and may well be proved right however I doubt any of them would put their mortgage on it!

sunset

How are these extremes defined? What long term data sets are being used? Unless one knows, it is rightly described (above) as opinion, nothing more.

gothwalk

JM Skipton wrote: »

Lets be honest about this, nobody knows exactly what will happen in the future.These Scientists can have their educated opinions and may well be proved right however I doubt any of them would put their mortgage on it!

Well, when we were buying our house, we were reasonably careful about it. It's more than 50m above sea level, so any rise in sea level that's reasonably possible in my lifetime won't reach it, nor even nearby. It's not on a flood plain, and is in an areas that's reasonably well drained (but not rocky or bone dry). There's enough of a sheltered back garden to grow things, and it's well-insulated. We've reburied pipes so they won't freeze, and added a front porch so we can have the Scandinavian style "airlock" there. There's nothing extreme in it, but there's a lot of stuff we didn't do - buying in coastal or flood plain locations being the main one.

So in that sense, you could say I put my mortgage on the likelihood of future climate change, and I'd imagine I'm far from being the only one.

JM Skipton

gothwalk wrote: »

Well, when we were buying our house, we were reasonably careful about it. It's more than 50m above sea level, so any rise in sea level that's reasonably possible in my lifetime won't reach it, nor even nearby. It's not on a flood plain, and is in an areas that's reasonably well drained (but not rocky or bone dry). There's enough of a sheltered back garden to grow things, and it's well-insulated. We've reburied pipes so they won't freeze, and added a front porch so we can have the Scandinavian style "airlock" there. There's nothing extreme in it, but there's a lot of stuff we didn't do - buying in coastal or flood plain locations being the main one.

So in that sense, you could say I put my mortgage on the likelihood of future climate change, and I'd imagine I'm far from being the only one.

Wow a lot of detail in there, sounds like you did a great job and I would imagine a lot of other people have indeed done similar.And of course I too would not buy a house in a flood plain or on a source of coastal erosion.
I think you may have missed my point however, the point I was trying to make was that Scientists can make a myriad of different predictions for the future depending on who is paying them the problem is they will never be held to account......bit like the economist Jim Power