It is written like a school report – “could try harder” – although the phrase that recurs through the UK Climate Change Assessment released last week is “more action needed”. Subjects like flooding and soil loss need “new stronger or different government policies” to deal with them.
But that is not all. There are a significant number of new problems being caused by the already-changing weather patterns and warming climate that are “research priorities” because no one yet knows enough about them to form a response. Among these are risks to food supply and some forest trees dying from drought and heat.
A major problem for an island with large stretches of populated coastline is ever-faster sea level rise. The general belief is that the problems of the south-east are potentially worse because the land is sinking but it seems the north is not in the clear, either.
Waves do the most damage to coastal defences, so during a high tide on an exposed coast their size matters. Mathematicians from Strathclyde University have just calculated the effect on Scottish North Sea coasts, on communities like Aberdeen, of a combination of spring tides, strong winds and high waves. Examining just three storms in 2010 they took into account locally produced waves, swell from distant storms, and tidal currents.
The research showed that as these three interacted they could either reduce wave height or increase it by two metres. So depending on the circumstances, with locally-generated waves already 3.5m high and storm swell waves from the Norwegian Sea up to 5m, local communities could in the future face a severe battering.
