Climate Change

Building up the banks of rivers with flood defence walls etc. is self defeating as once these defences are breached, as is the case in Cumbria where only a few years ago they increased the height of the defences in places such as Carlisle and Keswick. These defences trap greater volumes of water so if and when they are breached huge volumes of water inundate the areas they are supposedly protecting, far much more than before the defences were heightened. This is pure common sense which the Americans discovered years ago with the Mississippi levees and Germany discovered with the Rhine in places like Cologne.
The way to prevent flooding is, as Brian says, is to ensure that the volumes of water coming down the rivers have an uninterrupted flow to the sea by dredging the river bottoms and their exits to the sea. The flooding of the Somerset levels a few years ago proved this as dredging of the canals etc. there had been halted years previously but was hastily restarted once the water levels dropped. In addition, as in the Mississippi delta, relief canals need to be built to assist in taking the volumes of flood water safely away from the flood plains to the sea but we never learn as its cheaper to build higher defences rather than carrying out proper dredging of our rivers to ensure they can handle the predicted volumes of water caused by these storms.
Weirs etc. built by man in recent years that supposedly control water flow, only serve to create barriers that allow a build up of water upstream of them resulting in a far greater volume of water flowing over them at a far greater speed than before those weirs were built.
rgds
JA

Looking at one of the rivers in the flood area John didn't look like it had an interrupted flow it looked like it was moving at a 100 knots.There was a man and woman being rescued the water was above their waist,the man said we were flooded out 10 years ago and after the new defences were put in place we were told it wont happen again,he was not amused.It was said £38 million was spent to keep the water out but I suppose if you get one months rain in one day it is likely to overwhelm any small barricade.
Regards.
Jim.B.

That should read make fun. JS

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Originally Posted by j.sabourn

Watched that program the other night about the Gorillas and their plight, as struggling to maintain their existence. The poor old various breeds of Dinosaurs and other reptiles, fish and birds didn't have the advantage of such benefactors to try and save them. Eventually mankind will destroy itself, it will not be a recognizable world by then. Hope they don't do away with the natural way of fertilisation, although may be coming fast with all these same sex marriages. Another wise saying make sun while the sun shines, through the smog. Cheers JS

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That is the whole point John, over millennium the world has changed. New creatures emerge, some become extinct, politicians should be in that bit, but the world keeps turning and will until the end. This planet is finite and one day the sun will die and it will be good night nurse.

A reply in todays paper in answer to a readers letter in #27.
To answer how did the ice age end, the last ice age ended 12000 years ago, though that period was actually the last glaciation. We"re still currently in an Ice Age and have been so for the past 3 million years because there is ice at both poles. Ice ages are caused by what is known as Milankovitch cycles-cyclical variations in the earths orbit and axial tilt. Search Milankovitch cycles on the internet for an explanation of what they are; its basic climate 101. Greenhouse gases are important in driving climate. We wouldn't be living on a habitable planet otherwise. Without greenhouse gases, the average global temperature would be minus 18c. But there are other factors affecting climate, too, the existence of which don't disprove global warming.

Everyone has a bit of knowledge, but I always wonder why the egg heads don't come out with the full story, I think they just express their own personal fears. My own knowledge of cyclical orbit as any navigator will tell you it takes approx. a year to make when furthest from the sun is said to be in Aphelion and when closest in Perihelion. The reason why we have a leap year is to make up the difference of it not taking exactly a year to complete one circuit. JS

Hi John.
24,000 people in Paris trying to find the answer to climate change, they should have stayed home they must have sent up enough green house gas to last twenty years.
I just got my power bill for the last three months $138 and on the back it showed that in that three months we made 5 tones of greenhouse gas, [I assume that what was used to produce our electricity} so in Paris the 24,000 people there must have emitted something like 120,000 tons of greenhouse gas in the short period they spent wasting taxpayers money.
On the other hand down here in Cooma we must be pretty clear of greenhouse gas as in the winter it is around minus 14 not far off the minus 18, mind you it could be offset by all the cattle we have on the Monaro.
Cheers Des

Des, much of the electricity produced in France comes from nuclear plants, but I am of the opinion that there is more politics in this than anything to do with the climate. Before Al Gore lost out to Bush there was none of this going on. Then he decided that if he could not be president he would make a nuisance of himself doing something else, climate change was his choice.

Ref. to the readers letter I have also maintained that we are not told the full story by government sources re Climate Change. As Turncoats claim to fame is to explain all the moves and the reasons that he makes , which up to present he has had no need to do, perhaps his vision of climate change may be a way to start. Anyone studying the basics of navigation should be aware of the earths passage around the sun. When taking a sun sight there are corrections to apply which are Dip Refraction Semi Diameter and Parallyx. Just taking the semi-diameter of the sun correction is to get the centre of, on the horizon, to achieve the sextant altitude. This correction changes month by month due to the varying diameters of the sun month by month as its distance from varies and these corrections have been used for at least the past 250 years. So as long as people get it into their minds that climate can only be altered by altering the orbital passages of the earth then thats it. What they are talking about what they fail to say is they are trying to change the weather, a natural phenomena, we all know that smog causes fog and such like, and should definetley be cut down on as regards emissions, to change the climate however would take a little bit more doing, unless of course they can call in Superman to either tilt the earth or change it trajectory. Or even the old Indian rainmaker ( redskin) to do a bit of chanting and maybe save a lot of their own hot air. JS

An interesting aside. The world production of C02 actually is falling.
Regards
Vic

That may well be the case but as the number of persons on the earth increases so will the level of Co2 produced. Cut population growth and that may help to reduce levels.