Great Western Coffee Shop

My apologies, Mods, if I've put this thread in the wrong place....

I was reading a very interesting article on the Met Office website the other day, called "A Global Perspective on the Recent Storms and Floods in the UK.".  (I would provide the link, but the last time I tried to upload the appropriate page, all I got was a load of textual gobbledegook)

The gist of the article was about rising sea temperatures and the effects on global weather systems.  I have read similar synopses in other books (I think one called "The Big Earth Book") about the tipping point as regards the rising temperature of our planet, and the effects on the eco-systems and oceans etc.  One can't help but wonder whether we have already reached, or even passed, beyond redemption, the point of no return; that we now have to face the consequences of that rise.  As we all  know, the planets weather systems seemed to have gone completely to pot in recent years; scientists are warning that we will just have to learn to live with extreme weather events.

So, my point is, How long will it be before Network Rail and all the train operating companies throw in the towel, and decide that it is counter-productive to spend sqwillions of pounds on the rail system, in the light of continuing extreme, and very damaging weather patterns?  Will they realise after a few years that they will not be able to keep their share-holders happy with nice fat didvidends, and ask the government of the day to re-nationalise the railways, so that once again the poor ol' tax payer will have to pick up the bills if a national rail system remains viable?  "Discuss", as they say in all the best A-level papers.

Did anyone listen to Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 this morning?  A discussion about who is to blame for the floods etc.  Various people supposedly in the know were all blaming each other/anyone else but themselves, and it took a listener 'phoning in to provide the most sensible response on the programme, i.e., we're ALL to blame, for burning fossil fuels and failing to keep a check on levels of CO2.

You won't have to wait too long for renationalisation of Network Rail as its happening on 1st September.

I have just had one of stone in pond ideas, see where the ripples go!

I am fast coming to te econclusion that if we want to live in a civilised society with a decent NHS, schools and transport system plus an adequate drainage and sanitation (maybe that should be first) system we are all going to have to pay MORE TAX!

It is interesting to note that the Danes seem to be the happiest people in the world and yet pay the highest tax

It's all the frog spit, isn't it?

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/gumx50.jpg)

In all seriousness, Cynthia, Network Rail is in effect a nationalised asset and indeed it gets formally put back on the government books soon ... and quite a lot of the current shorter franchises are more operating contracts than commercial ventures in their own right ...

Thanks for that, John R, your statement highlights the fact that I know diddly squat about railways!   ::)

Perhaps I need to rephrase that paragraph in my diatribe to wonder how long the government will continue to invest in the railway infastructure long-term, in the light of forthcoming worsening/damaging extreme weather events.

Isn't that also the case in Finland and Sweden?  I'm with you on this one, eight, but I don't think it'll happen any time soon in this country.  Not only would most people oppose the idea vociferously, but the companies that are already turning tax evasion into a fine art will just find even further ways of avoiding sharing their goodies with the Treasury.  Lovely idea though.

Although isn't Network Rail (unlike Railtrack before it) only psudeo-private anyway?

One fears this may be the case, but must hope otherwise as the alternative is "we're doomed". One also hopes that our leaders take note and start realising that things cannot continue as they have been and start to try leading us away from that deadly point of no return. For example, current government policy still supports enhanced infrustructure to support growth in car use and aviation. A transport-centric example, but it goes far beyond transport.

Yes, but the forthcoming change in the treatment of its debt makes it much more clearly a state asset (or is that liability).

It might lead to a change in policy over NR debt. Network Rail debt will now be classified as public debt, whereas it was previously off the government's books. Network Rail debt is the main way infrastructure enhancements are funded under the current regime.

This is surely why so many privatisations are ultimately a recipe for disaster as far as the tax payer is concerned.  Utilities are sold off cheaply, squeezed dry and the bones thrown back at the treasury.  Oh, lucky lucky us.  Lots of Network Rail debt to service, whilst trying to fund improvements at a time of unprecedented extreme weather events.


Edited to fix quote. bignosemac

It's being so cheerful that keeps me going!  Personally, though I do try to remain optimistic about the future, the facts about sea temperature rises and their effects are hard to ignore. And I am one big hypocrite anyway, as, much as my ambition is to make much more use of rail travel, you'd still need a tin-opener to prise me out of my little Skoda, even if it is a fairly low-emissions motor.



Edited to fix quote. bignosemac

grahame said they're already effectively nationalised, you are saying it's happening on 1st September, who is right?  I was talking to my daughter about this today, and she didn't believe me!  I don't know where to look for the evidence.

NR currently has no shareholders or owners as such, but is still subject to government statute and control.  As I understand it, a technical change to the way NR is financially accounted takes place on 1st September.  This will mean NR will in effect become part of the national debt and subject to government spending controls.

IMHO, although probably not technically nationalised at the moment, NR is de facto already there except it is free from the down sides of that state.  However, it is to be brought closer under the dead hand of the Treasury it seems so the political winds of change and vacillation are more likely to be apparent in long term planning on the railways.

As for evidence, it's somewhere in Hansard, but I'm finding it difficult to pin-point at present.  No doubt someone with more expertise at scanning the official Parliamentary record can help.

Edit by trainer for typo

That is certainly the way I see it too.

Agree- thanks trainer for setting the position out so clearly.

Thanks trainer, I must admit I'm very confused about the financial state of our railways, and their ownership.  Has Network Rail never had any shareholders/private investors?  I thought that's what privatisation was all about - attracting investment for the 'product' and apparently improving the service through competition.

Anyway, I'm still not entirely sure I feel confident about the future of the railways in the face of worsening climatic events, if the Exchequer is paying the bills!

Network Rail is a company limited by guarantee. It has members who have a role to hold the Directors to account, but they do not have a finaicial stake in the company.

Railtrack was the privatised company, until it was taken into administration ("Railway administration" no less, a curious status, which I presume was not seen before and is unlikely to be seen again).  Network Rail was the organisation put in place to replace it, and has always been effectively guaranteed by the government, in that money it raised in the capital markets (the Network Rail credit card, as it has become known) would in the final event be honoured by the government if NR was unable to pay.

Placing Railtrack into administration was very much a political decision. In the wake of the Hatfield crash it was apparent that Railtrack needed significantly higher amounts of government funding to improve maintenance standards, and the Rail Regulator was, AKAIK, going to award a much greater level of funding to Railtrack before the Transport Secretary at the time, Stephen Byers, blocked the awarding of extra funds, which meant Railtrack was left with a massive funding shortfall.

Thanks for your input, folks.

I just wonder whether anyone had actually been able to read the Met Office website article to which I originally referred? I had trouble getting the article to open, but it seemed to working alright again yesterday.

There was a Hydrologist on Channel 4 News this evening casting doom and dispondency; saying that because of record rainfall this winter, all the aquifers were full, the ground was completely sodden and there was just nowhere for the rain to go. (Except for draining into rivers - which are already overflowing.  Ok, now tell us something we don't know....) Looks like the railway infrastructure will continue to suffer for some time yet, through subsidence, erosion of banks etc. 

What I didn't know was that dredging can do more harm than good in some cases, by undermining structures and causing erosion and such like.

Hmm! As much of the Netherlands is kept dry by dredging the rivers and canals and pumping water at the right time and at the right places it is clear the man is talking nonsense. If the dredging is done incorrectly it certainly causes damage - the trick is to get it done by people who know what they are doing.

The problem in the UK is we like a simple answer to a complicated problem.  Dredging has drawbacks and fell out of fashion for perfectly legitimate reasons.  We then simplistically decided that all dredging was bad and stopped it even where it would have been useful.  We will doubtless start dredging again and some of it will be in the wrong places simply to placate simplistic demands to do something.  Like so many things in life the answer to the question "dredging bad or good" is "it depends".

Hmm! As much of the Netherlands is kept dry by dredging the rivers and canals and pumping water at the right time and at the right places it is clear the man is talking nonsense. If the dredging is done incorrectly it certainly causes damage - the trick is to get it done by people who know what they are doing.
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The problem in the UK is we like a simple answer to a complicated problem.  Dredging has drawbacks and fell out of fashion for perfectly legitimate reasons.  We then simplistically decided that all dredging was bad and stopped it even where it would have been useful.  We will doubtless start dredging again and some of it will be in the wrong places simply to placate simplistic demands to do something.  Like so many things in life the answer to the question "dredging bad or good" is "it depends".


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Did we stop dredging because we decided all dredging was bad, or did we stop it because the government was starving the EA of funds?!

Difficult - probably a mixture of both.  I suspect there was a report that said that at such and such a location dredging is not having any effect so is a waste of money.  The logical extension of this was then for all dredging programmes to be subject to a review.  However, since the review cost money and there was a need to save money, some civil servant who knew little of the subject used it as an excuse just to suggest to Ministers that all dredging was a waste of money and so they should stop all dredging. 

Dredging is not a panacea for all it works in some locations.  What the levels need is what they are now getting is more pumps (at Kings Sedgemoor Drain) and perhaps a tidal barrier across the Parrett to stop the sea coming up the river - with pumps to pump the flow at high tide.

The increase in the number of pumps operating on the Somerset levels is, according to the BBC News this evening due to the arrival of some additional equipment from Holland.  This got me wondering about whether the Dutch do much to their drainage systems in terms of dredging?  Perhaps if the UK is going to be subjected to many more severe weather events in the future, we need to start taking some lessons from the Netherlands.  I'm not sure whether the Dutch have been affected by heavy rainfall this winter, to the same extent as the UK, but you don't hear much about flooding there, in  land which is as flat as the proverbial pancake!

Firstly some background to what I am about to write! About 30 years ago I lived and worked in Belgium and, as one does, we took the opportunity to visit many places near us, and that included the Netherlands. On one of these trips we stayed near Naarden which is a magnificent star-shaped fortification built to protect the coast of what was then the Zuider Zee. Now it is well inland and looks across, not at the sea, but at the reclaimed land at Almere.

This got me interested in the Dutch coastal defences and so I did some reading and research into the history and techniques of such works. What I write is from memory which has obviously faded a bit and may not be exactly correct but in essence there are two main natural events the Dutch have to guard against. These are storm surges in the North Sea and high flows and water levels in the rivers feeding the delta, the main ones being the Rhein, the Maas and the IJssel. The Rhine carried the most water as it has a huge catchment area - it rises in Switzweland and carries not only the water from its tributaries draining areas such as the eastern side of the Vosges mountains in France but also the western side of the Black Forest massif in Germany as well as rivers such as the Neckar, the Main and the Moselle (yes, I also lived in Germany for some years!) but also the increased flow for the snow melt in the Alps in spring. The water volumes can be immense.

Defence against the storm surges is essentially to have high enough walls round the edge of the country to keep the sea out! It's actually a bit more than that, most of the coastal towns of any size a some way back from the coastline, except den Haag, allowing a surge to peter out before it reaches the sea defences.

As the rivers reach the flat lands near the coast the water speed falls and the slit being carried in the flow starts to settle out. If the rivers slit up too much then the flows get so slow that the low lying areas near the rivers are not completely drained by the end of the summer. The point about the Dutch method of water management is not so much to dredge the main rivers so that their cross section is big enough to take all of a surge (because of the quantities of water in question this is absolutely impossible) but to allow the rising rivers to cover designated low lying areas. To make the capacity of these low lying areas as big as possible the water levels in them has to be as low as possible by the time the rainy season begins. This is done by limited dredging of the smaller rivers which drain them. In fact in the Netherlands the major rivers are also dredged but there is another reason for this - to permit shipping on the inland waterways of Europe. Vessels up to around 3,000 tonnes can reach Switzerland so the navigable channel is quite deep - although I don't think anybody is suggesting dredging the Brue or the Thames to this extent!

By giving the flood waters coming down the major rivers somewhere to go the extent and severity of any flooding can be limited. The Dutch also have defence in depth - bunds and dykes around villages, towns and farms which limit the extent of excessive flooding in extreme conditions.

Even the Dutch do not claim to have eliminated flooding - but they can and do limit its extent and severity. And as they were instrumental in draining the Fenlands and part, at least, of the Somerset Levels, it would have been wise to continue what they started and not to stop dredging because it is 'policy'.

What the levels also needs is for the upland rainwater catchment, of the rivers that flow onto them, to be vastly improved. To much upland farmland has been cleared of woodland. Too many water meadows are permanently drained. Meanders have been straightened.

DEFRA should stop paying farmers to clear land for livestock and crops and instead pay them to replant woodland.

Agreed

What the levels also needs is for the upland rainwater catchment, of the rivers that flow onto them, to be vastly improved. To much upland farmland has been cleared of woodland. Too many water meadows are permanently drained. Meanders have been straightened.

DEFRA should stop paying farmers to clear land for livestock and crops and instead pay them to replant woodland.
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Well said, BNM, especially as fallen trees are a global warming accelerant; the less trees, (and of course they're being blown down now,as well as cut down!)the less CO2 being absorbed.  However it'll take years for replanting to reverse the process.  As you may guess, I continue to worry about whether the climatic changes have passed the 'tipping point'.  Having watched a rather worrying report on Channel 4 News about recent world weather events, it looks as though we're in for a rocky ride for some time to come.

An excellent, balanced argument (which I have to say up-front does rather chime with my own views, so it may not be as "balanced" as I'm making out!)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10639819/UK-weather-its-not-as-weird-as-our-warmists-claim.html

Of particular note to my mind is the following,


Ever since a colleague who transferred to the office I was then working in after a lengthy career in the Met Office explained his what sounded to me entirely rational professional reservations about the direction the organisation was heading in back in 2011, I've been using, on his recommendation, the Norwegian Met Office's website for my weather guidance, and I have to say it's noticeably more reliable - and I mean REALLY noticeably so. Try it yourself:

http://www.yr.no

(obviously the first thing you'll need to do is change the language to English in the top right corner - after that though you can drill down to UK towns and even villages)

Network Rail latter this becomes a Government Agency doing away with the pretence that it is a "private" company; very little will change in how it operates on a day to day bases also the 5 year control periods will remain as the main vehicle to funding.  It also fits in with HS2 future operation.

One of the things that David Higgins stated in his leaving article in Railnews was the need for Government to make greater investment into the resilience of the railways against the effects of the weather particularly flooding.

From the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-26215777):

The above report about the Dutch pumps shows that there may be a reason why the 'simple' solution wasn't acted on earlier.  As has been said before, simple solutions are great for those who don't understand how all the engineering, geological, meteorological, agricultural and sociological pieces fit together.  Many people know a lot about each of the above and they need to talk to each other if we are to survive these natural phenomena.  No doubt transport planners will need to be a part of the dialogue.

Interesting article from BBC website underlining the fact that all this is nothing new:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26153241

What is new is the duration of the floods and the fact that they still happened despite huge investment in flood defences since 1928.

What is new is the duration of the floods and the fact that they still happened despite huge investment in flood defences since 1928.


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What is also significant is mention of the fact that surrounding areas had been built on - a lesson we still haven't learned from history!

One of the things that David Higgins stated in his leaving article in Railnews was the need for Government to make greater investment into the resilience of the railways against the effects of the weather particularly flooding.
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In that case I can't help but wonder whether the rail network will lose out to the road transport lobbyists, considering the damage flood water does to road surfaces.

Oh, flippin' laptop  >:(  I was in the middle of typing another reply (because I can't get the hang of doing multiple replies on one posting,)

and the screen suddenly went back to the home page.

Where was I? The Thames flooding being nothing new; interesting that between the 17th and 19th centuries the Thames had frozen solid 23 times, to the extent they used to hold trade fairs on the ice.

Interesting also that we were told the storm at Boscastle was a once-in-200-year event, yet it had happened not that far up the coast at Lynton and Lynmouth in 1952, and again just a year later in East Anglia.  But apart from 1946 and 1962/63 we haven't had any really bad freeze-ups.  Drought in 1976, hurricane in 1987 and 2014 is already looking like the wettest winter for 250 years.  That's only in this country.  Lots of strange weather events going on globally too.

... and neither is this kind of journalism:

Of course that's true, in the sense that every flood is unique. But broadly similar floods are common enough - you could reasonably call them "normal". After all, a 1-in-100 per year event has a better than evens chance of occurring in your lifetime (70 years is enough).

Another storm surge, of course, happened in 1953, and both didn't go far upstream. The snow melt flood of 1928 was a smaller version of 1947, still everybody's reference point further up the Thames. Some parts of London (Wey, Mole and Lea valleys) had worse flooding in 1968. And before the war there's a wide choice of Thames floods, back to 1894 which is the biggest one there are usable volume and level estimates for. In most cases the main source for these earlier floods is newspapers - which can or course be misleading.

After 1947 the Thames was deepened by a foot and its weirs widened. So it can carry a lot more water now without flooding more than a few houses. Mind you, there are questions about whether that has been compromised by no longer dredging. At Reading we have twice been close to 2003 peak, about a foot below street level in Lower Caversham, which has no flood protection at all. It may still go a bit higher, depending on the rain already on its way and yet to fall.

But the differences between flood patterns do matter if you want to predict them. This time does seem to be over a longer period than previous ones. Clearly something led to the present more serious floods below Maidenhead, which the Environment Agency didn't predict until very late. Obviously there will be a lot of screaming and shouting about the Jubilee River, and it must have some effect. If it is significant, and it becomes politically necessary to extend it to Teddington, finding a route for that would be a mini-HS2 of a task.

I was only a 1 in 200 year event at that location. So a in in 200 year event at a different location doesn't lead to questions as to whether it is really 1 in 200.

Hmm. I'm afraid the use of the word 'warmist' in the title gives a good indication of where the supposed 'balance' lies, and I'm afraid Christopher Booker has a long track record of writing uninformed nonsense about climate change, a subject on which he has no expertise...

Sorry Ellendune, I have to disagree with you there; Lynton being less than 70 miles from Boscastle does I think put both places in the same area of vulnerability to weather systems approaching from the Atlantic.

Sorry, I was speaking from a professional point of view.  The strict definition of a 1 in 200 year event is one that falls in the same location and has an impact on the same properties. This is the definition that hydrologists and meteorologists use when they give out these numbers. Neither event hit Boscastle on both occasions and neither event hit Lynmouth on both occasions.  On both occasions the events were highly localised thunderstorms so they did not extend over an area anything like as large as 70 miles. They can both therefore be justifiably called 1 in 200 year events.

Incidentally, calling it 1 in 200 year event is a bit misleading.  We are moving towards describing it as an event with a probability of occurrence of 0.5% in any year.  So there is a small probability (0.0025%) that you could have two in one year in the same place. However this is all based on our understanding of past weather (measured over many decades).

However, I agree there is a lot of strange weather about. The difficulty the scientists have is there is a small probability each time that that it could be the normal variation withing the existing climate.  Of course the more weird weather that happens the less likely that is.  Hence the statement from the chief scientist at the Met Office a few days ago. 

I will bow to your superior knowledge, ellendune, as you are obviously better informed than me, on this subject!  We can agree, at least, that there's some strange weather about.

Interesting to look at the March 2012 forecast which is at here (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/i/A3-layout-precip-AMJ.pdf) rather than have it distilled through someone else. It actually states the following probability:
So the Met Office didn't 'assure' that it would be drier than average, only that this was a more likely possibility. In the end the 10-15% chance won. It also says:
The three month outlook for November 2013 ^ January 2014 is here (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/2/q/A3_plots-precip-NDJ.pdf). The precipitation indication:
Ultimately these are trend indications for contingency planning purposes.

An update, from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-26225359):

Anyone else looking at that picture from the BBC and thinking 'The Guns of Navarone'?

Just me?  :D

Just you.  ::) ;) ;D


That's what I'm waiting for ...  :P

I have a book called "The Berkshire Weather Book", put together mainly from newspapers. It includes Thames floods even if the rain in them fell upstream. I've gone through trying to pick out the years for which it records major floods, to give you an idea how many there have been (but I've probably missed some) . The book came out in 1994.

Of course the amount of rain that produces a major flood has gone up as work has been done on the river, but all these river floods would have flooded a similar number of houses to this year. Places like Old Windsor would of course get some flooding most years, and before 1900 only the bigger ones are in the book.

Major Thames floods:
Mar 1774*
Jan 1809* (snowmelt)
Nov 1852* ("Wellington's flood")
Nov 1875
Nov 1894*
Feb 1897
Feb 1900 (snowmelt)
Feb 1904
Apr 1908 (snowmelt)
Dec 1914/Jan 1915
Jul 1920
Jan 1925
Jan 1926
Jan 1928 (snowmelt)
Jan 1936 (snowmelt)
MAr 1937 (snowmelt)
Mar 1947* (snowmelt)
Jan 1949 (snowmelt)
Jan 1951
1974
Dec 1979 (Boulter's weir blocked by barge)/Jan 1980
Feb 1990

The asterisked ones were the biggest - from reports, much worse than this year (on the Thames).
Looking at the 1920s, even the last ten years isn't exactly "unprecedented".

Major flash floods (may also give some river flooding):
Feb 1883 / 1901 / Jun 1903 / Jun 1910 / Apr 1913 / May 1932 / 1943 / Sep 1968 / Jun 1971 / Mar 1979 / May 1993