If current floods are caused by global warming what caused the, much quoted, floods 60 years ago?

Question

I don't doubt that global warming is happening but how come we still had "unexpected" weather all those years ago? Perhaps all the debris from the Second World War poluted the atmosphere and caused a mini nuclear winter or perhaps is was just we had bad weather! I'd just like to know since we keep being told it's the worst flooding since 1947.

Answer 1

That was the great floods of 1953....It was a combination of a very high spring tide,very low pressure over the North Sea and no coastal flood defences

Answer 2

The current floods may or may not be caused by global warming. There really is no way to know, and this is irrelevant to the central issue of global warming, which is a very slow but inexorable rise in temperature due to the burning of fossil fuels. The best climate models indicate that global warming is only just beginning, and will get worse for thousands of years to come. The initial few decades may even show some favorable results, since a little warming is not a bad thing.

Answer 3

It really isn't possible to attribute one event to global warming. - just to say it is part of an expeted trend i.e. extreme weather events such as this are expected to become more frequent.

It is interesting to note that despite all the cloud cover and rain temperatures this summer have been around the 30 year average, and Europe is in the grip of a massive heatwave (>40 deg C in eastern Europe).
Certainly the La Nina event is influencing the position of the jet stream and sending these wet weather systems our way instead of north of us.
I think the 40s floods were caused by melting snow and were during spring time. I would suggest that the cooling effect from all the greater air pollution (particularly particles) during the 40s could have lead to a decrease in temperature allowing the build-up of snow before the spring thaw, although I haven't had time to search for papers or go through the data on this.

Answer 4

My god. This country has become a bunch of media lead headline reactionaries. So, we have had a bit of unusual weather! Big deal. Is this the first time in our history? Of cause not! Its happened at least once every decade that I can think of. What about the hurricane in the 80's? Extreme heat of the 70's, ect, ect.

Are the last few weeks directly related to climate change or just a freak event? Who knows? The scientists don't, the environmentalists don't. But they will try and sell the idea to you based on their own agendas. We will see next year. If this becomes the norm, then we can say there is a link.

However, is there a link between climate change and humans? I still haven't seen any convincing evidence of that yet.

Answer 5

its unprecedented because we are in the middle of summer. we exopect drouts not flooding, this would be more expected in the winter. But yes we have always had extreme weater and i sometimes think its too quickly attributed to global warming, last years heatwave was apparantly due to global warming as well.

You can not judge global warming from the day to day weather patterns, you have to see how the weather alters over longer cycles. Extreme weather has always happened and will continue to, however historically these flood events were once in 50-100 year events, if we start to get this sort of extreme condition over a shorter period of time e.g. every 5-10 years then we can say that it was a result of global warming.

The weather patterns over the last 10 years show we are starting to get more extremes in our weather, we've had more extremelly hot days and more very wet days in the last 10 years than we would usually anticipate, and the weather of the last few weeks seems to back up this theory that we will get more floods as well as more droughts

Answer 6

The deforestation of Europe caused by World War II. This is the same sort of thing that is happening now because of all the sand being kicked into the atmosphere by the American military in Iraq.

Answer 7

Indeed. I always crack up when some global warming looney says......"It's been the hottest here this past week in over 50 years." My question is why was it so hot 50 years ago??? Global warming???? Have we been in a global cooling stage for the past 49??? Too funny....these whacko leftist loons are definately fun to listen to.

Answer 8

People who say this or that single weather event is caused by global warming are not being reasonable.

Answer 9

We have deviations from the normal weather patterns all the time. This, and the floodings 60 years ago are examples of that. What is expected is that those deviations will occur more frequently, and more severly, then before.

Answer 10

"Global Warming" does not exist! Just 30 years ago these same scientist who have come to a "consensus" about global warming were the same ones telling us that global cooling was at the root of the world’s ills. And that is another thing, this whole notion that "the debate is over, the consensus is in and global warming exists", what is that, what an oxymoron anyways, to be true science there is no such thing as consensus either it is proven fact or it is an unproven theory. For every scientist (meteorologist, climatologists, geographist, etc.) there are just as many reputable ones who contradict this theory and tend to explain these patterns through cyclic patterns that the earth goes through in order to maintain its balance. And the problem goes even further than scientist, the real root of the problem are has-been politicians who are looking for a comeback through the means of preaching the false religion of global warming with their Hollywood disciples. Now if you ask me do I believe that we a certain direct impact on our environment, I say of course we do. We have a certain moral, ethical, and more so religious responsibility to respect, maintain, and nurture our earth because we do not own these lands we occupy and the waters surrounding them, we are merely stewards of this world for the brief time we are here. My point being, we give ourselves too much credit if we think that we could destroy something so vast, so complex as this worlds ecosystem in the short span of 150 years it's just not practical thinking. Do we need to become more aware and vigilant when caring for our world, yes. But not because everyone who wants to make a name for themselves that has just jumped on the latest bandwagon of global warming, this whole thing is the biggest money grab of our time. For every company out there packaging "Eco-Friendly", "Green", "Low Carbon Output" products, do you honestly think they are doing it from a truly environmental standpoint and have they overnight restructured they manufacturing facilities so as to leave a smaller "carbon footprint", of course not it's all about the money. My advice to all of you that believe in global warming just because Al Gore and his movie told you exist is to go out and do some independent study, look at the other side of the argument and then make a decision.