As you pointed out: jet stream has diverted, warming is putting more moisture into the atmosphere and it's going to drop on someone. More energy in the atmosphere leading to more extreme storms. If I thought the weather was totally random, then there would be no conversation. But I think it's in a trend. Funny you should mention flood defences built for a 100 or 200 year exceptional event, only to find 2 years later than they are already insufficient. Either that's really bad luck, or the events are to be more frequent than thought of even 2 years ago.
That's just it, though, isn't it? You are only not surprised if you think that we are in a trend where extreme weather is now the norm. You'd be very surprised if you figured that the flooding was a very very infrequent occurrence and that you'd just had bad luck. I thought @Ducbird's comment on trees and hedges being ripped out was interesting, although when you are in a plane flying over the UK, there are hedges everywhere. The moment you start flying over France, they have all disappeared.
If I was rich enough to buy a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice, I would not be complaining about the floodability of the ground floor.
Surely most of the hedgerows in England were created deliberately during the Enclosures, in the 16th to 18th centuries. They are not a natural feature of the landscape.
Surely the natural feature of the landscape is for it all to be one huge forest. That is surely what it was before humans started to cut it all down? Hedgerows are cool, which is why I planted (a small) one.
The weather isn't and never was random, it is chaotic and that is entirely different from random. The recent floods are 10 years after the last major flooding which triggered the defences being built. Bear in mind that a 100 year event is not a single isolated figure there is also a probability associated with that figure, there is also the budget that was available for flood defences, maybe someone gambled and lost. To assume that this is evidence of climate change let alone anthropogenic climate change is just fanciful, or you may be right.
Extreme weather is the norm, it always has been. @Ducbird did make a very good point about hedgerows, but there is also all of the new housing being build on the flood plains of the upper reaches of the Thames, all with drainage feeding into the Thames. In the past the land and boggy areas soaked up and slowed the passage of water through the catchment, now it is all dumped into drains and hits that nice house at the same time, hence the increase in flooding. There are more factors in play than climate change and they are definitely man made.
:Banghead:this is a wind up now :Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead::Banghead: a recon its the atoms in the rain particles not bonding to the co-efficient molecules , therefore zolification cant take place hence patriclization on the third plateau cannot do the bonding required to stop it pissing down wi rain,
I was really just taking the mick out of Pete1950. We live in a landscape shaped by man, which is why the UK looks quite different to other countries. But back in the day, I imagine it was pretty much all forest until it was cleared for agriculture and dwellings. I don't think anyone expects the UK population to live in a forest. But a few more trees would be nice. Where I live in Switzerland, the farmers hate hedgerows. They must do, or there would be more of them. They see them, I suspect, as acerage lost to crop production. But I suspect that the hedgerows provide a habitat for animals that reduce pests as well as acting as windbreaks and drainage. Not that I am an expert in these matters.
If extreme weather was the norm, it wouldn't be extreme, would it? It would be normal. You can't have normally extreme weather. The Sahara is extremely hot, but that's just normal in the Sahara (and please, don't someone mention that millennia ago, the Sahara was a forest or underwater). Not many people live in the Sahara, understandably. The climate change problem is all about unfriendly environments being visited on people where they now live. London, New York or Tokyo aren't about to just up-sticks and move elsewhere.
What would be extreme, or certainly very odd, is if the weather was always the same. Variation, including extremes, is the norm.
Well I am all for taking the mick out of Pete1950 The issue though is too much drainage, what we need is less, to delay and reduce peak flows. It is clearing forests, removing hedgerows, building housing estates and improving drainage that causes flooding. All of the water that falls in a catchment speeds up and arrives downstream at the same time. This is more of a water resources management issue than a climate change issue.
