Thread: Flood frequency
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Old May 16th 09, 08:58 PM posted to uk.sci.weather
Alastair Alastair is offline
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First recorded activity by Weather-Banter: Mar 2006
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Default Flood frequency

On May 16, 5:39*pm, Steve J wrote:
On 16 May, 17:38, Alastair wrote:
Thank you for your contributions gentlemen, especially Alistair who
seems to think me incapable of searcing wiki and the havens of the
average student who like to copy and paste their essays into a word
documanet:-)


I didn't realise that you wanted scientific papers disproving "the
supposed increase in flood frequency and intensity in the UK as a
result of climate change." That is more difficult since the general
consensus is that climate change will lead to an increase, but I think
I can comply :-)

But first let me defend Wikipedia. As I have already reported, at
the last RMetSoc meeting two FRSes used diagrams from Wikipedia in
their presentations. Of course you should not trust it blindly, but it
is a good starting point. In fact the link from it I gave you is the
latest official thinking on flooding in the UK - The Pitt Review
http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/...ittreview.html .

Hopefully this post will be read by more than just yourself Steve. So
the following is aimed at all readers of this post not just you. If
you have not already done so it is well worth joining the Royal
Meteorological Society. When you do so you get their magazine
"Weather" for free. The subscription to the society can be deducted
from you income tax since it is a professional association.
Alternatively, you can do as I did, and join at the student rate if
you enroll on the Open University first level Weather course. The
magazine has a mix of light to serious articles on weather, though not
full blown scientific papers which I assume would be well beyond 14
year old pupils.

The reason I mention that, is in last January's (2009) there was an
article which fits your specification. It is a rebuttal of the Pitt
Review. It argues that although the rainfall events in the summer of
2007 were the heaviest ever recorded in a three month period they
should not be described as 'unprecedented'! The full citation is
Eden, Philip. (2009) "The Government's response to the summer floods
of 2007", Weather, Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 64 p18-22 DOI:
10.1002/wea.358

HTH,

Cheers, Alastair.