CLIMATE change is driving heavier rainfall during winter storms and increasing the UK’s risk of flooding, experts warned as Storm Dennis continued to cause chaos.
Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said recent storms show Britain is “clearly” not ready for what’s to come as global temperatures rise.
Heavy rain and strong winds swept across the UK over the weekend, with more than a month’s worth of rain falling in 48 hours in some places and homes, roads and railways flooded.
Last night police in Worcestershire confirmed that a woman who had gone missing during torrential rain had been found dead.
Yvonne Booth, 55, from the Great Barr area of Birmingham, was feared to have been swept away in flood waters near Tenbury on Sunday. Her body was recovered yesterday following a police search.
A statement from her family, released by West Mercia Police, said: “Yvonne is a very much loved member of our family and we are all devastated by this news.”
“We appreciate the continued support from the emergency services. We would like to ask for our privacy at this time.”
A man recovered from the water in the same incident was airlifted to hospital wand was in a stable condition, police said.
Scotland appeared to escape the worst of the damage, while major incidents due to flooding were declared in South Wales, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire.
Research has shown that conditions of a previous winter storm – Desmond in 2015 – were made 40% more likely due to climate change.
If temperatures rise by 3C, which is what efforts to cut emissions already outlined by countries currently put the world on track for, storms could bring around 20% more rain than they would without climate change.
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Dr Michael Bryne, a lecturer in climate science at the University of St Andrews, said the jury is still out on whether climate change will strengthen or weaken the high winds in storms such as Ciara and Dennis, but “when the storms come there will be more rain associated with them”.
“These storms are nothing new, going back 100 years, but, because we are now more than 1C warmer as a whole versus pre-industrial times, every degree means 7% more water in the atmosphere and more rain in these heavy rain events.
“When they come, they bring more rain, 100% for certain, because of climate change.”
Cloke warned the storms are “most likely a taster of what is to come” and we should pay attention to them.
She went on: “We’ve always seen these big floods but we do keep seeing these records being broken, it’s very concerning.”
She said more people are living in areas at risk, and there is a need to think about how the landscape is managed. And that is not just down to more hard flood defences, she said, urging: “We should be using the whole toolkit of things to prepare for floods.”
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Such a toolkit would include looking after soil so it can soak up water and does not run off the land to block watercourses, using uplands to catch water, diverting it on to fields upstream of settlements, and putting in “leaky dams” made of wood in streams to slow the water’s flow down to the towns.
She also warned against building on flood plains, and said that where it is absolutely necessary, better, joined-up planning is needed to protect homes from floods.
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