Germany's Floods.

JohnC6

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I was taken aback when a friend sent me these photos. They look like the aftermath of a bombing raid. A war zone.


The disastrous flooding also hit hit Belgium (6 dead), the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Germany has now declared 50 dead.

It doesn't seem that long ago that these catastrophic events were declared as one in a 100 year event , then 50 years and they are becoming, or in reality have become, almost annual features. The fires in Australia followed by tremendous thunderstorms and flooding. In Furnace Creek, (Death Valley) California on July 9th 54.4C was recorded that's 134F in old money .When I heard that I thought I must have misheard it but it was correct. The record high for Saudi Arabia is 53C. The highest temperature recorded was 56 July 12 2012 was the previous record at 41.7C..107F.Temps for last Sunday July 11th. https://www.clickorlando.com/weathe...h-hottest-temperature-ever-recorded-on-earth/ California's fire season is earlier and more devastating. Last year California experienced, by acres burned, the worst year in the state’s modern fire history. The previous record had been set only two years earlier , in 2018, when the Camp Fire incinerated Paradise and almost 2 million acres burned in total throughout the state. Each year, globally, some record falls. In Delhi recently the 90 year record was broken with a temperature of 43.6C.-110.48F.In Moscow in June the temperature reached 35C (95F)

I recall a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago when climatologists were saying that we'll get what we have now in 30 years and said that my opinion is that it's going to get worse far quicker than anyone had thought possible. It's got a momentum now. One reason I came to this conclusion was how quickly the ice at the poles was melting. Huge sheets and glaciers are melting and detaching from the coastlines. Over the past 30 years the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic (it's said that this ice is the glue that holds the Arctic together) has declined by an alarming 95 percent, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report Card. Antarctica ice loss has increased significantly in the last 40 years and it's now losing six times more ice than it was in the 1980s. With no slowing of climate change likely this melt will continue accelerating and the implications for global sea level rise are dire. Another reason for my pessimism was the increasing frequency of severe storms, including snow storms, here in the UK.

I read today that the Amazon rainforest is now giving off more carbon dioxide than it absorbs. This is due to climate change, deforestation and and fires..

China is responsible for 25% of the world's CO2 emissions has about 1058 coal mines in operation..about half of the world's coal mines and it's building one major coal-fired power station a week. Over the past 10 year it has spent tens of billions of dollars to build coal fired energy plants in 152 countries through its Belt and Road initiative Roughly 70% of the coal plants built globally now rely on Chinese funding. Within China it's building 184 coal-powered electricity stations. In 2020 it built three times more coal-fired facilities than any other country. It all amounts to on e coal-fired facility a week. China and the US account for 43% of global CO2 emissions. China has declared that it will aim to be carbon-neutyral by 2060. 2060 ? By 2050 17% of Bangladesh, where the average land above sea level is is 9m (30ft) is forecast to be submerged displacing 20 million people along with many low lying Pacific islands and also the Bahamas, which was devastated by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Most of Grand Bahama, including Nassau Abaco and Spanish Wells are also projected to be under water by 2050.

In Brazil Bolsanaro is allowing thousands of acres of the Brazilian rain forests to be cut down since he took office in 2019.

Our own government had to intervene earlier this year in relation a new coal mine at Whitehaven, Cumbria, which takes some believing as we're to host the COP26 conference in Glasgow this coming November. So much pressure was brought to bear on the government from many sources and agencies ..not to mention it's own MPs that the project has been suspended pending a public enquiry. It was the first mine to be built for 30 years.

It all sort of makes a mockery of a project by a farmer in my region (hats off for doing his bit,though)who adds garlic pellets to the feed for his cattle to help reduce their farting (hope that passes the auto-censor :) )..which adds methane to the atmosphere..worse than CO2 ..80 times worse with regard to global warming. Having said that,though the largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions is agriculture, responsible for 25% of the total with the rest coming from coal, oil, natural gas and biofuels.


If anyone is interested in an overview of the consequences of climate change here's a map of extreme events drawn up by Carbonbrief. In the early 2000s, a new field of climate-science research emerged that began to explore the human fingerprint on extreme weather, such as floods, heatwaves, droughts and storms.


Here's a very interesting heat map of Europe. The highest temperatures recorded are in France-Italy-Spain and Portugal. Published June 20th.

I'll end on this grim prediction. I think for many on here we won't see any improvement in our lifetime, we'll just see it get worse. Three years ago we had one side of our garden re-fenced and the other also fenced but to replace a high hedge and because of the certainty that we'll experience very high winds more frequently we had concrete posts put in and thick closeboard panels put up.
 
Global Warming and yet still we are burning oil to fuel our cars, depressing realy.
 
Just looked through the link John , that’s terrible how many years will the recovery take .. looks like we had a lucky escape over here as well
 
and thick closeboard panels put up.
Are you sure that’s the right thing? Better to have a fence that allows wind through. Round here a popular style is to have fences that have staggered palings so that air gets through but still private, takes more wood though. Hedges also have that advantage. (Of corse I can’t see your garden so that may be rubbish :().
 
On Global Heating. I wonder if there has been a tendency to err on the side of caution to not be accused of being alarmist? Several of these recent events have surprised by their severity.
 
Saw the pictures from Valkenburg in the Netherlands, been there and can imagine how badly affected it will be.
All the cafes and shops are on ground level with nothing to stop the water, also lots of Limestone caves which will now be flooded.

Liege looks badly hit too and can't see Maastricht getting away lightly either.
Haven't seen how places further down the Meuse like Dinant are faring.
 
Just looked through the link John , that’s terrible how many years will the recovery take .. looks like we had a lucky escape over here as well


Another term I could have used,Jeff was 'aghast'. I've never seen anything like that on that scale before. The death toll is rising as more bodies are recovered. Considering it was a flood I have to sayy that I was suprised that some people took shelter in their basement. I'd have thought instinct would have had them upstairs..if they had one.

I said the very same thing to my wife this evening as we watched TV reports from those areas..ie. "We had a lucky escape " I heard a BBC met man say that those storms were the same rain storms that hit the SE of England the other day then moved over to Belgium, the Netherlands,Germany and Luxemburg.
 
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Severe weather events just between July 8-16...ie this month.

 
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On Global Heating. I wonder if there has been a tendency to err on the side of caution to not be accused of being alarmist? Several of these recent events have surprised by their severity.


On the Chn4 News this evening I watched an interview with a member of the German Green Party who said they'd been warning the German government of the likely hood of a catastrophe like this for years. Also, one German interviewed said the authorities in the north..I can't recall exact locations, had heeded those warnings and taken measures which saved them from a wipeout re this event. Boris Johnson has used the term 'Climate Change' only 10 times during his time in Parliament.The Party which has raied it most often is the Lib Dems. You'd think it would have been the Green Party.

From the Carbonbrief paper.

Labour, along with smaller parties including the Liberal Democrats, Greens and the Scottish National Party have also made greater use of the dramatic new language that over the past year has come to characterise climate discussions.

Members of these parties have collectively racked up 339 references to a climate “crisis”, “emergency” or “catastrophe”, whereas the ruling Conservatives have only used these terms 32 times. The Green MP Caroline Lucas is single handedly responsible for 31 mentions.


To address your question, Richard have a read of this which relates to Hebden Bridge, in the west of your county. It looks to me to be less to do with being alarmist and everything to do with a lack of joined-up thinking and the usual culprit.....cost.

 
Are you sure that’s the right thing? Better to have a fence that allows wind through. Round here a popular style is to have fences that have staggered palings so that air gets through but still private, takes more wood though. Hedges also have that advantage. (Of corse I can’t see your garden so that may be rubbish :().


Take your point about hedges but that hedge just had to go. It was about 25m long 1.5 m thick and 2.5m in height. At one time we had 30 sparrows living in there and then one year none and we've never seen them again. I have many photos of them. One year they were host to an escaped Zebra Finch from the city park aviary which some yobs had cut a hole in. It was funny to watch them sitting on the top (soft leaves not a thorny hedge) when something alarmed them and as one they dropped down into safety. My wife saw me fall of the ladder one day..the garden is on a very gentle slope but enough to be unable to have the step ladder as I'd want it to be for stability. I had a large electric hedge trimmer in my hands. It happened on the other side of the garden too when I fell off the ladder into the Berberes bush adjacent ...not a pleasant experience..lol and holding the electric trimmer away from me as I hit the ground. I hung oin to it so it wouldn't chop me so it kept running I didn't tell my wife about that so when she insisted the other hedge..the large one .. I didn't take much persuading. It's probably why I still have both arms and legs intact. You know what the A&E staff say ? Most BH accidents are from people like me cutting hedges on a ladder and with electric trimmers and DIY..ers :)

We used to have a trellis,years ago and that was never blown down because, as you say..there's space for the winds to blow through. I was unaware of the type of fencing you've mentioned.
 
@JohnC6

Re:hedge clippers ~ doesn't yours have two switches i.e. requiring both hands to make it run. When I let go of one it stops instantly (I think I recall 0.3s )

Or is what I described only for cable connection model(s)?
 
@JohnC6

Re:hedge clippers ~ doesn't yours have two switches i.e. requiring both hands to make it run. When I let go of one it stops instantly (I think I recall 0.3s )

Or is what I described only for cable connection model(s)?

We used to have hedge clippers that had a spring loaded switch. The tool stopped immediately if you let go of it. It sounds much the same as yours, a sort of dead man's switch?
 
It looks to me to be less to do with being alarmist and everything to do with a lack of joined-up thinking and the usual culprit.....cost.
Oh yes, but I was thinking of climate researchers being unconsciously erring on the side of caution in some way :(.

Classic case of how politics works: I saw that the gravel pit that turned into a sinkhole in Germany had only been allowed if they built a 1.5 metre wall to stop it filling with water in flooding. In other words they had foreseen the danger and compromised by only killing people on an acceptable 100 year (or whatever) timescale. It‘s what happens with most of these environmentally hazardous schemes where a compromise deal is obtained :(.
 
Obviously "Climate" is the first to be mentioned, and there are other important issues, but

Joni Mitchell always comes into my mind - "they paved paradise, (and) put up a parking lot" - when I see things like this

Planners - they never learn - they continue to lay concrete all over the bloody country, fields, back garden etc., to satisfy their sole aim of building new houses and developments

There is a tipping point when nature fights back to being abused by man

(I'm buying a few sand bags next week!!)
 
One way to improve surface water runoff would be to replace the vast acreage of tarmac with paving grids. There are a few problems of course...
  • It would cost a fortune.
  • The vegetation growing through the grid would need to be cut.
  • Speed limits would have to be greatly reduced for safety and noise control.
  • Manufacturing the grids would create massive CO2 emissions.
...just one damn thing after another... :tumbleweed:
 
One way to improve surface water runoff would be to replace the vast acreage of tarmac with paving grids. There are a few problems of course...
  • It would cost a fortune.
  • The vegetation growing through the grid would need to be cut.
  • Speed limits would have to be greatly reduced for safety and noise control.
  • Manufacturing the grids would create massive CO2 emissions.
...just one damn thing after another... :tumbleweed:

Scaling drainage to match runoff and keeping it clear, having plans and capacity for the water will also work.

Learning from mistakes helps too. Changes made behind our house caused a soakaway to fill with runoff water for the first time ever last August. We built a low barrier wall around it and sure enough, when the issue potentially recurred just a few months later our house did not flood a second time. Granted this will need more than a low wall, but the same principle applies.
 
Scaling drainage to match runoff and keeping it clear, having plans and capacity for the water will also work.
Something that the privatised water companies have never learned to do.

In our area, the drainage is (and this has been admitted by the guilty parties) running at 100% of capacity in the summer months...

They're going to do something, errr, real soon now. :thinking:
 
we all continue to build on flood plains along side rivers. And cover runoff areas with concrete.
we should expect floods. as the water has nowhere else to go.
what in normal circumstances would be minor controlled flooding now becomes a disaster.
 
we all continue to build on flood plains along side rivers. And cover runoff areas with concrete.
we should expect floods. as the water has nowhere else to go.
what in normal circumstances would be minor controlled flooding now becomes a disaster.

One of the main problems is drainage ditches are overgrown, we had floods here Christmas Eve because of that.
The river did go over its banks, but was limited to the flood plain, heavy rain inundated all the culverts though.
 
One of the main problems is drainage ditches are overgrown, we had floods here Christmas Eve because of that.
The river did go over its banks, but was limited to the flood plain, heavy rain inundated all the culverts though.
Culverts and the like are designed to let the run off drain in a controlled way, so as to not cause more problems down stream. Overgrown ditches are not the problem that they might seem... But within limits.
 
Culverts and the like are designed to let the run off drain in a controlled way, so as to not cause more problems down stream. Overgrown ditches are not the problem that they might seem... But within limits.
Trouble is they get all sorts of debris in them like broken branches.
I can assure you that it caused enough problems here, small retail park was put out of action.
 
@JohnC6

Re:hedge clippers ~ doesn't yours have two switches i.e. requiring both hands to make it run. When I let go of one it stops instantly (I think I recall 0.3s )

Or is what I described only for cable connection model(s)?

No, mine was a Black & Decker and had a cable.I've disposed of it since. The motor would switch off when the trigger was released so not a two-handed trimmer needing both hands. It was a few years ago so I can't recall in detail other than on that occasion when I toppled into the Beberes it must have switched off but I do recall it still running as the ladder was toppling and I was holding it away from me as I landed on the ground .On the other occasion, when I was trimming that huge hedge, the ladder was on the lawn and as it toppled I threw the trimmer away from me. .I think what caused the ladder to topple because I was leaning over to do the top. It was a 6' step-ladder not one of the very long single ones. Wew have 8' shrubs at tbhe bottom of the farden and because it's just as precarious we have a local garden/landscape chapo to cpome in. Hecstands on the ground and uses a long pole with a petrol driven cutter on the end. How sensible. We pay £70 . I wondered about getting one but my wife insists that we just give him a call and to be honest, that's the right call what with not getting younger and all that..:D
 
Oh yes, but I was thinking of climate researchers being unconsciously erring on the side of caution in some way
I don't think it is unconscious. I've read /heard that there is a range of possible outcomes from global heating and they never put forward the most extreme one. I think in many respects global heating is progressing far more quickly than most climatologists predicted.
 
I don't think it is unconscious. I've read /heard that there is a range of possible outcomes from global heating and they never put forward the most extreme one. I think in many respects global heating is progressing far more quickly than most climatologists predicted.
I think it’s a mix of things as we've seen with COVID and scientific advice :(.
 
I think it’s a mix of things as we've seen with COVID and scientific advice :(.
The problem with scientific advice is that it's based on data and the problem with data is that there's generally far too much of it.

Then again, there's usually far too little of it as well. This isn't a paradox but a fact of statistical life. Many books and articles have been written on the subject of missing data and how the bigger the dataset, the more damaging the missing data can be. This is why big predictions are so often wrong. When we're lucky, they're only a little way out. Other times, they're so far out that we look back and wonder why we believed any of it.

Who remembers the Global Cooling fuss of the 1960s and 70s? That was a fashionable conjecture based on a lot of good science, which was in turn based largely on what later turned out to be missing data. You can get a taste of the story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Scientists are too often paid to make predictions when they should be offering ranges of outcomes - but governments and citizens aren't comfortable with anything except clear statements of the "this will happen" variety, which is why we so often get taken by surprise when reality exceeds the expectations.
 
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Who remembers the Global Cooling fuss of the 1960s and 70s?
Remember it only too well :( though it was more like an interesting strand of the debate about climate change and warming was more likely.
 
Remember it only too well :( though it was more like an interesting strand of the debate about climate change and warming was more likely.
I remember it the other way around. I recall numerous programmes on radio and TV together with seemed like a non-stop stream of newspaper and magazine articles predicting London would be under a thousand feet of ice. Even Scientific American ran at least one large article on the theory.

On the other hand, it was 50 years ago, so I might only be retrieving the edited highlights. :thinking: :naughty:
 
I remember it the other way around. I recall numerous programmes on radio and TV together with seemed like a non-stop stream of newspaper and magazine articles predicting London would be under a thousand feet of ice. Even Scientific American ran at least one large article on the theory.

On the other hand, it was 50 years ago, so I might only be retrieving the edited highlights. :thinking: :naughty:
I remember it from around ‘63 I think when it was certainly not mainstream but interesting. A lot about Earth has progressed since then, Continental Drift, despite being posited for many years, was also a more or less interesting idea though pretty convincing to biologists.
 
...though pretty convincing to biologists.
Yes.

I remember a radio programme on that subject, wherein a geologist said that it was the biological evidence that pushed (sorry!) the tectonic theory to the forefront. There were various species of plants and mid-sized animals in the fossil records which were distributed in a way that only made sense if two now seperated land masses had once been joined.
 
Yes.

I remember a radio programme on that subject, wherein a geologist said that it was the biological evidence that pushed (sorry!) the tectonic theory to the forefront. There were various species of plants and mid-sized animals in the fossil records which were distributed in a way that only made sense if two now seperated land masses had once been joined.
Indeed, around 1960 it was the distribution of eg marsupials in the Americas and Australia and IIRC various lungfishes endemic to Australia, Africa and South America that was hard to explain any other way and of course the obvious shapes of land masses that seemed to fit together helped.
 
I thought that the tectonic plate theory was still valid , although I don’t keep up with things like I used to
 
I thought that the tectonic plate theory was still valid , although I don’t keep up with things like I used to
Yes and they are still drifting. The whole of earth's surface is moving like crusty thick porridge simmering slowly away. It will likely slow and stop in the distant future.
 
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I thought that the tectonic plate theory was still valid , although I don’t keep up with things like I used to
Continental Drift is the original term (possibly for a few hundred years) because there was no knowledge of the underlying mechanism. Plate Tectonics AFAIK is the current term, I’m just showing my age by using the older term I think :(.
 
Just glad we live at the top of a hill, unless I’m walking home up the blooming thing.
 
Just glad we live at the top of a hill, unless I’m walking home up the blooming thing.
Me too, though hills can be vulnerable too with extreme rainfall :(.
 
Me too, though hills can be vulnerable too with extreme rainfall :(.
At the end of the 1976 heatwave, East Devon had the most almighty downpour. I got several lucrative sales to the local press through being in just the right place at the right time to record the flooding. :whistle:
 
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