The Low Carbon Partnership
Solar Power
Floods
The increased threat of floods is another consequence of climate change and it is something that the UK is already having to face. There are two main reasons why climate change is linked to flooding: firstly, global warming is making sea levels rise, secondly, it is causing heavier rainfall in some areas.
Global warming is causing sea level rise because the temperature of the oceans is increasing - and water expands when it gets warmer. Also, it is melting glaciers and ice-sheets - which means that there is more water in the oceans. Average sea levels have risen by 10-20cm over the last 100 years and scientists predict that there will be further rises over the next 100 years. Rising seas will mean more flooding in coastal areas. Many of the world’s major cities such as London and New York are on the coast and are likely to experience more floods, causing disruption and damaging buildings. But even away from cities millions of people around the world live in low lying coastal areas and are likely to suffer from erosion and loss of land to the sea. In poorer countries many pople will lose their livelihoods, or even their lives.
Global warming will also change patterns of rainfall, which will become more variable and with heavier rainstorms. As rain falls more heavily and over shorter periods of time the ground is less able to soak up the water so it pools more quickly, and rivers and streams burst their banks. Some areas such as northern Europe and wet tropical areas are predicted to become 40 percent wetter. In the UK, our seasons have already been changing, with warmer and wetter winters than in the past and even unpredictably wet summers.
As the people of Yorkshire and Gloucestershire found out in July of 2007, flooding can damage homes, wreck cars, cut off the electricity and even cause deaths. With better defences people will be able to cope more with the affects of flooding, but it is likely that we will have to adapt to wetter weather in the future.
