So this is what global warming looks like. In December, 196 nations met in Paris to agree a plan that would limit global temperature rises to 2° Celsius and to “pursue efforts” to limit the increase to 1.5°C; and the mild, wet weather that followed in the UK was a reminder of the need to make good on the commitment. December’s average temperature was 8°C, no less than 4.1°C higher than the average. As a warming climate holds more water, rain inevitably followed.
The floods of July 2007, which caused £3bn worth of damage, were meant to be a one-off event. Instead, they appear to have inaugurated a new era of extreme weather. The list of places overwhelmed by supposedly freak conditions is growing all the time. To Tewkesbury, Hull and the many other places in the north and Midlands that were flooded in 2007, we can now add Morpeth in 2008, Keswick and Cockermouth in 2009, the Welsh town of St Asaph in 2012 and the Somerset Levels during the winter of 2013-14.
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